Forever Odd

The aptly named Odd Thomas is not a detective but a quiet young man who sees ghosts and helps the police chief of his desert town solve crimes. Reader David Aaron Baker understands his character so well that he makes it easy to be completely drawn into Odd's world, in which his best friends are a morbidly obese mystery writer, a fatherly police chief, and the ghost of Elvis Presley. Baker's voice has an endearing gentle quality that perfectly suits the character. In the second Odd novel, an evil woman learns of his powers and will stop at nothing to exploit him. Murder is the least of her crimes. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

February 6, 2006
A dead-on performance by narrator Baker brings Koontz's supernatural thriller to life. Odd Thomas, the psychic protagonist of Koontz's 2003 novel of the same name, is blessed, or cursed, with the ability to see the dead. Thomas is summoned to the house of his best friend, Danny Jessup, by Danny's murdered father. Danny is missing and it is up to Thomas to find him. His search leads him to an old, abandoned casino and into the clutches of the frightening Datura, who plans to use Thomas and his powers to further her own demented and deadly exploration of the supernatural. Baker excellently keeps the suspense as taunt as Koontz's prose. He gives Thomas an appropriately youthful vocalization while at the same time capturing the "old soul" weariness of someone who has seen and endured too much sorrow and tragedy, for his age. With Datura, Baker offers a perfect interpretation as he bounces effectively from seductive through menacing to just plain insane. Baker hits all the right thrills in this enjoyable melding of reader and writer. Simultaneous release with the Bantam hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 7).