And he defused a conspiracy to nuke several American cities and use the chaos to take over the country.

He protected a schoolful of monks, nuns, and disabled children from a mad scientist’s killer experiment. He saved a hostage from a witchy woman and her wacko minions. He cut short an attempt to shoot up and bomb a shopping mall. His powers have helped him to stay alive while killing evil people before they can carry out their plans to cause death on an even more massive scale. Until now, Odd has used his paranormal abilities-seeing dead people, psychic magnetism, the occasional prophetic dream, etc.-mainly to stave off merely mortal monsters. This book is an exception to the rule as Odd Thomas adventures go, even apart from its origin as an e-book serial.

To make it simple for myself, I’m going to think of it as the fifth Odd Thomas novel, taking place within about 24 hours after the events of Odd Hours. But both in canon order and on the author’s website, it fits between Odd Hours and Odd Apocalypse. Its publication date puts it between Odd Apocalypse and Deeply Odd. And before being published in a single paperback volume, it was originally rolled out as a three-part series of novellas. This book bills itself as “A Special Odd Thomas Adventure.” Its main character describes it as a “detour from the main arc of journey.” In this list of the works of Dean Koontz, extremely prolific horror maven that he is, it is listed separately from the canonical series of (so far) seven Odd Thomas novels.

Odd interlude