I recently finished re-reading Odd Thomas, and I see a bit more clearly now why Koontz fans are split over the character of Odd. He's a very humble fellow, but his humility is almost aggressive. We're to accept him as nearly as hesitant to act as Hamlet, if we're to accept him at all. And yet, if we buy into the premise that Odd sees the "restless dead" and acts as an agent of justice and perhaps comfort for them, we must buy also that he has to be very sure before he does act. Additionally, we have to understand that he has to live a very simple, almost ascetic, life to maintain his sanity.
Odd accepts, indeed embraces, Mystery in his life. See the Black Room in the Fungus Man's house as the prime example in this first volume in the series.
I am currently reading a collection of HP Lovecraft stories, beginning with The Call of Cthulu, and incredibly I have noticed marked similarities between this story and Odd Thomas. This is most notable in the Lovecraftian narrator's acceptance of Mystery, and in the tone of prose. This part I'm not really sure how to explain; it really has to be experienced in the reading.
Of course, Mystery in Lovecraft means something quite different than it does in Koontz. After all, remember that Cthulu and the other Old Ones are the very incarnation of evil and horror and madness. I guess I can't push this connection, this similarity, all that far.
