“The dead don't talk. I don't know why.” But they do try to communicate,
with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant
confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a
certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with
the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift,
maybe it's a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the
silent souls who seek him out. Sometimes they want justice, and
Odd's otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo's sympathetic police chief, Wyatt
Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time
it's different.
A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet
stuffed with information on the world's worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like
shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not
even Odd's deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page
ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15.
Today is August 14.
In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe.
As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting
prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his
soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock
‘n’ Roll. His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and
destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares–and a testament by which
to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even
in the darkness must persevere.
“From the Hardcover edition.”
