ODD HOURS By Dean Koontz – Reviewed

The fourth book in the Odd Thomas series see our hero in Magic Beach. Just a short time after his adventures at the monastery (see Brother Odd), Odd is working for a retired film actor and heads towards the pier where he meets up with a strange young pregnant woman. The pair encounter a menacing group of men, Odd ends up in the sea fighting for his life, and he is the witness and only one who can stop, a massive terrorist conspiracy to nuke major cities in America…

Odd’s special powers, being able to talk to ghosts and find things he’s looking for, come in handy as he desperately tries to investigate and stop the bombing of America.

The Odd Thomas books are pleasant, easy-reading. Koontz doesn’t go very hard with the tension, the action or the pace of the novels. They kind of meander towards the inevitable conclusion. But they are fun, and the characters are really what make the books something special. Odd is funny, intelligent in a simple way and sweet, and his interactions with a whole bunch of strange characters, including the ghost of Frank Sinatra, are really what make these books worth reading.

Good fun, not the best of the Odd books, as the first one is definitely the one to beat, but the formula works well enough, so Koontz isn’t about to try and fix it.

HORNS By Joe Hill – Reviewed

When Ig wakes up after a night he can’t remember his lack of memory is the least of his problems: he has developed horns, like a devil, that make people tell him their deepest, darkness thoughts. And as Ig is the town pariah, thought to have murdered his childhood sweetheart, the truths he hears are unkind to say the least…

Hill is a natural storyteller, much like his father, and manages to suck you into the story and his characters. This book reminded me of King’s work, as well as Odd Thomas by Koontz.

It’s the murder mystery that initially draws you in, but the characters are what continue to keep your interest after the mystery is solved.

Involving and entertaining, but lacking a sufficiently explosive climax. The book further cements Hill as one of the best writers of horror in America.

PRETTY LITTLE DEAD THINGS By Gary McMahon – Reviewed

Harrowing. If I had to sum up this book in one word it would be that one. Disturbing, horrifying, terrifying, creepy, gruesome, unsavoury, rotten, nasty, filthy would all work too. This is the kind of book that makes you want a shower afterwards. The kind that leaves a lingering sense of decay, one that takes a little part of your soul with it. There are horror novels, and there are Gary McMahon horror novels. He is simply in a different class.

Thomas Usher’s was driving when a car crash killed his wife and daughter. He survived, but quickly found he had been left with a terrible, horrible gift. Usher can see the dead. But if you think this is going to be Haley Joel Osmond in The Sixth Sense, or Jonah Hex or Odd Thomas, then you are so very wrong. Usher’s guilt-filled existence is horrible enough, but he happens to be following a young woman who is murdered (the third to be hung), and his friend is related to a young girl who is abducted. How are the abduction and the murders related, and can Usher uses the powers that he’s been trying to suppress for the past year to help solve the cases?

McMahon builds a gritty world of urban decay, his human characters are just as revolting, gruesome and disturbing as the supernatural elements. Our narrator and protagonist, guilt-riddled as he is, is the only faint hope we have.

As depressingly realistic, as nasty and brutal as this novel is, you have to read on. You must. There is a grinding darkness that saps your will to escape. McMahon’s first Usher novel is a stupendous feat of hideousness. In the best possible way. This is horror as it’s most revealing. You cannot read this book and not feel unclean, untouched. McMahon does what the best writers do, he makes you feel. You feel disgust, you feel slightly sick, you feel relief. McMahon makes you hurt. Pretty Little Dead Things should be McMahon’s break out novel, this should be a best seller, every horror fan must read this book. They will find out what they’ve been missing all these years. Pretty Little Dead Things is hardcore. Unrelentingly dark and terribly atmospheric, you have not read a horror novel until you have read a McMahon horror novel.

Never, in over twenty years of reading horror, have I been so intensely disturbed by a novel.

Pretty Little Dead Things is sublime. Real horror at it’s very worst (meaning best). Hardcore horror. Not for the faint of heart.

FOREVER ODD By Dean Koontz – Reviewed

I read the first Odd book about a year ago, and thought it was marvellous. A twisted thriller with nice horror overtones, bringing something new and exciting into my life. Odd is the reluctant dead-seeing hero, out to stop a massive armed attack on the small town of Pico Mundo where he lives. The poignant and heart-rending ending stole my heart, and made me weep. It was a great book, anything that makes me feel something I can’t help but love.

That’s why this novel is such a disappointment. Expectations too high perhaps? Well, possibly, but writers shouldn’t set a standard with their first book in a series and then immediately let you down.

Here Odd finds his night’s sleep interrupted by a dead doctor, and on going to investigate, finds his friend has been kidnapped by a crazy woman. A crazy woman, who, it turns out, wants to lure Odd to his death.

Fairly simple, and yet it’s dragged out for over four hundred pages. This feels like a novel with a minimum word count, stretched almost to breaking point. It’s a testament to Koontz’s writing skills that he still makes it readable and mildly entertaining. But mildly is perhaps being too generous.

The book is long-winded and almost boring. It starts off far too melancholy, the character of Odd and his strange friends and relationships are put on the back-burner while the meagre plot is explored.

Only loyal fans should read this second instalment in the Odd Thomas series. I will be returning for the third novel, but it better be a damn sight better than this or I will be most upset!