Brother Odd by Dean Koontz is the third novel in the Odd Thomas series. I have read the first two novels in the series as well; I think there are seven in total. The first novel was jarring and it was darker, in many aspects, than I liked. The second novel was really quite bizarre and wild. I feel like for this third novel, Koontz dialed-back the totally crazy and pared down the setting quite a bit. In a way, it is almost the opposite of the pandemonium in the second novel, Forever Odd.
I am not going to lie – I utterly enjoyed this novel. I want to give it five stars, but if I do, I am honestly “afraid” that people will think that I have gone soft or that such a rating will discredit my ratings generally. The thing is, I said I enjoyed this novel, not that this novel is a great work of high literary worth. I could be bashful and not give it the rating I want to give it, but that does not suit. So, if readers of this blog think that I have lost my mind because of it, well, so be it.
Some of the reasons why I think this is a five-star novel include the setting. I really enjoy suspense novels that have “locked down” settings. The characters being stranded, trapped, isolated always seems to make a tightly-wound thriller. Not every such story is guaranteed to be a success. Often it happens that such stories start becoming repetitive or treading water, so to speak. However, I like the resourcefulness and courage that it makes the characters have (or not have, as the case may be) to stuff them into one location. Sometimes being stranded becomes boring – authors get stranded right along side those characters. They have to keep our interest with a lot more limited space. As a reader, I tend to enjoy seeing what authors can do with tight settings.
After the previous two novels, I think that the more subtle and reduced approach with the storytelling in this novel worked well. I was apprehensive that since the second novel had been so off-the-rails, this third would have to be completely outrageous. So, it was really good that Koontz pulled his foot off of the gas. In this novel, Odd Thomas is at a monastery in Sierra California. St. Bartholomew’s Abbey also has a school of sorts, which is really a home for severely disabled and unwanted children. The school is run by nuns. Odd Thomas breaks open the story sharing that he has been a guest in their guesthouse for about seven months.
Straightaway, the reader’s suspicions are built among the cast of characters – and obviously, it is a sense of something-or-other because in this location, these people have an added curtain of morals to their existence. Yes, the story taking place in a monastery gave me a little pause at first – I admit I was expecting Koontz to make a mocking and a very, let us say, agenda-ized story. Truthfully, I cannot say that he did not – but it is 180° from what I was worrying about.
There is more faith in this story than in 90% of the things I have read in the last decade. Yeah, color me surprised.
Oh, the novel is also 30% suspense and 70% sentimentality.
I am not one that usually enjoys any emotional content in my novels. Usually, the emotional content in novels is so poorly-written it makes me grumpy. Somehow, for whatever reasons, this novel did not make me grumpy. When I say emotional, in this novel that usually means misery and pain. There is so much misery and pain that the characters in this novel seem to have around them – but the terrible, terrible, awful terrible part is that I know all the other parts of the novel are fiction. The pain parts…. the miseries and sufferings of the characters? Those parts are not fiction. Humans can be a rotten lot. Oh, I do not mean the specifics, naturally. Do not act like you do not know what I am talking about. Anyway, my heart was sort of broken for some of the miserable characters in the book – but no, not them. I was unhappy because I know these characters represent real world situations/people. That bothers me.
Chapter 45 is particularly gut-wrenching in all respects. All respects. Its a multi-faceted viewpoint wherein the scenes depicted just swirl the emotional content every which way. And this includes the reveal of the true status of a specific shady character – yeah, the Russian character, of course. Its a scene, where time is of the essence, but the characters have to communicate information and backstory. Imagine standing in a hallway with a nun, Odd Thomas, and a big Russian dude – and they are talking about the horrific backstory to a poor child in nearby room. This chapter is a very heavy chapter. Mainly, I think, the point is to have the reveal about the Russian character and also show the fortitude and backstory relevance of Odd Thomas himself. It actually accomplishes a lot more than that.
This novel is not really anything other than a superficial, kind-of entertaining pulp fiction. I mean, you likely would not include it in your permanent collection and I do not think it is going to set Koontz up for any prized awards. The villain is kind of obvious and the pseudo-science is incredibly ridiculous. Is it very creative and horrific? Yes, I would say so. The horror is suspenseful, just like the incredible blizzard that arrives, wouldntchaknowit, right on time for the climax of the action!
I am telling you – its an eye-rolling story. It is a story so full of silly and goofy and ridiculous. Like the poltergeist who rings the bells or the dog, Boo, there are so many things that all the seasoned and skeptical readers will just be utterly disgusted by. All these silly comments by Odd all the time combined with the villain cut from a James Bond movie just make all the cool kid readers scoff and snort derision. The problem is: this is a story that you have to look at obliquely. Its true all the saccharine elements will make most readers feel like they ate too much candy and the whole story is just so contrived! These are true criticisms and I agree – but the contents that we have to look at obliquely are upsetting. I think most readers will rather focus on knocking around all the sentimentality rather than writhing in sorrow over the elements that do not go away after you close the book cover.
I know that there are a whole pile of readers out there that will not like this book whatsoever. They probably dislike it for a few differing reasons, as well. This book is really not for everyone. The author told me a good story that had elements in it that I could access and that also I could be entertained by. I know I cannot recommend this book to nearly anyone. That is okay, because even though I lamented above that there is all this crime and evil – I’m going to continue right along with my crime/noir reading like nothing ever happened. I think. Maigret is on deck. He is never cheery.
4.7 stars (bring it.)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami was first published in 1985 in Japan and the English translation was released in 1991. This is the third Murakami I have read and the best of the three. After I had read halfway through this novel, I had more or less decided that I was giving it at least four stars. I really wanted to be able to push it up to five stars, but there are some elements of the novel that I just do not care for.
The Last Wish by Andrej Sapkowski is the first The Witcher item I have read. No, I have never played the game and no, I have never seen any video or show. So, this is basically my introduction to The Witcher. However, I also live in wild times with y’all and therefore I cannot say I was utterly blank when it came to this series and this character. How do I know about The Witcher? I could not say, except to suggest some sort of ambient knowledge that I absorbed unawares. This is a collection of stories that was first published in Polish in 1993. In English, the first release was 2007. I have had it on my TBR list since 2018.
Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham (1904 – 1966) was first published in 1930. It is the second in the Albert Campion series; I read the first back in 2015 and did not really care for it. Mystery Mile, however, is the first novel in which the character Albert Campion actually stars having the main rôle. Anywhere online where I saw anything about “Albert Campion,” I saw mention of how the character is a parody of or very similar to Lord Peter Wimsey of Dorothy L. Sayers’ work. I feel like this is some sort of literary-world mantra that has been repeated so much that most readers accept it as fact. In my reading, I can see how readers might draw that conclusion, but at the same time, I do not think the connection is all that strong. Campion is made to produce a lot of chatter, some of it learned, most of it just free-association. It annoys his fellow characters more than it annoys the reader, truthfully. The Wimsey character can keep up a similar monologue, but his is somehow both more intelligent and more forlorn. So, Allingham might have taken a certain tidbit from Sayers and spun it a little differently. I doubt Wimsey is the only source; I seem to recall Sherlock et al. having a bit of – seemingly – irreverent chatter.
My latest read was an excellent novel to read after the misery of the previous one. Background to Danger (aka Uncommon Danger) by Eric Ambler was published in 1937. I definitely should have read this one years and years ago. However, in my defense, I have only begun really reading fiction since the late 2000s. So, once again, I find myself commenting on a novel that is very famous and seems like “everyone” has already read. I am late to the party – but it was a helluva party anyway.
Truthfully, since I feel like everyone has already read this, I feel people will think me foolish for my enjoyment; you know, latecomer to the bandwagon thing. I like intense stories with dynamic characters and exciting storylines. I know some readers today will not agree with me that these are dynamic characters, but my definition tends to be different. I usually do not think having strong characters is the same as endlessly relating every detail about characters. Yes, I do think some of the most tense action scenes may push the belief of the reader just a bit, but not, truly, in comparison to most of the moments in contemporary novels! Remember how I started off this review talking briefly about nitric acid? Well, you know, sometimes danger and action is a reality and not so far-fetched!
I finally got around to reading the second book in Stuart M. Kaminsky’s (1934 – 2009) Inspector Rostnikov series Black Knight In Red Square (1983). I had read book one in the series way back in 2013. I gave that novel a four star rating and I am going to give this novel the same. I knew even before opening the book that it would be four stars, so I am likely very prejudiced by enjoyment and not being very objective.
The Third Gate by Lincoln Child is the third book in his Jeremy Logan series. I have read the previous two novels. The Third Gate was published in 2012 and is the first in the series that has Logan on every page of the book, so to speak. In the previous novels, Logan was not a major character; here he takes control of the narrative.
The good thing: listen, I love setting and the setting of this novel is really good. I mean it. I was surprised to find such a strong, interesting, and intense setting in an adventure pulp. Child liberally utilizes the concept of the Sudd (Cp. The White Nile by Alan Moorehead – 1960) and expands and develops it as needed. Seriously, this stuff captured my imagination and I wanted to spend more time in this setting having it weigh on us, confuse us, frighten us. In other words, Child’s idea to use it is a great idea and he did a decent job. I just want him to have done an even better job. I did pull my old, crusty copy off of my bookshelves and think I will skim through it, just because I can.
I finished another book, but its another that I really did not like. In fact, I may actually dislike this one. I read Ruth Rendell’s From Doon With Death from 1964. I have heard that Baroness Rendell (1930 – 2015) is considered a strong mystery writer, so of course I started with the first of her famous Inspector Wexford novels. After having read this one, I have to say that I certainly hope that her other novels are big improvements. I think there are twenty-four novels in the Inspector Wexford series – and Rendell also wrote a bunch of other novels, besides.
Blazing through books these last two weeks, I finished another. It was on my to-be-read list because I had read the first, 
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