Odd Thomas

Odd Thomas is twenty and works as a short-order cook in Pico Mundo, a fictional desert town in California. His days are quiet. He has a girlfriend, Stormy Llewellyn, who manages an ice cream shop, and two close friends: Wyatt Porter, the police chief, and Little Ozzie, a mystery novelist.

Odd also sees the dead, and they often seek him out for help. He can sense bodachs too, shadowy spirits that gather wherever violence or disaster is about to happen.

Then Odd spots a stranger he privately calls Fungus Man, followed by far more bodachs than he has ever seen on one person. He trails the man and uncovers a plan for mass bloodshed in his hometown.

The story runs across a single day, which gives it a tight, urgent pace. Odd has only his gift and a handful of trusted allies to work out who is behind the plan.

It mixes supernatural horror with mystery and a tender love story, and it opens the Odd Thomas series, first published in 2003. Whether one young cook can stop an attack on his whole town before the day ends is what the book turns on.