When we last left ODD THOMAS – please skip to the next paragraph if you haven’t read that Dean Koontz novel – the young fry cook who can see the dead became the hero of his town by thwarting a homegrown terrorist attack on the local mall, only to lose his fiancée in the melée.

Now in the follow-up, FOREVER ODD, which plays like any given episode in an ODD THOMAS TV series, a remarkably coping Odd has left his job fluffing pancakes and whipping omelets. He awakes to find the ghost of neighbor Dr. Jessup in his room; souls linger in this world when they feel like they lack closure – in this case, that closure is leading Odd to the Jessup home, so he can find the doc’s dead body and not find his son Danny, presumably kidnapped by the murderer.

Cue opening credits. Like a one-man Mulder and Scully, Odd then uses his supernatural powers of detection – not to mention a string of mysterious, taunting cellphone calls – that draw him to the remains of a quake-ravaged Indian casino and hotel in the desert. There he locates Danny, a childhood best friend stricken with brittle bone disease, as well as his captor. It is here, already at the book’s midpoint, when things pick up and take a turn that wouldn’t be out of place in Koontz’s FRANKENSTEIN series.

Fade to commercial break. Then begins a cat-and-mouse game of wits, weaponry and poltergeist activity played out on so many levels of the hotel that it recalls both Koontz’s old THE FACE OF FEAR and David Morrell’s recent CREEPERS. And while much of the action takes place in this second half, said half could be reduced by half in order to be vastly improved, as much of it is repetitive and drawn-out. The climax is nice, though, and the end puts Odd at another crossroads in life, ready for next week’s adventure. Roll credits.

But FOREVER ODD seems perfectly as ease with its episodic nature, so it’s difficult to not share its easygoing enthusiasm. Odd is an engaging, fully likeable character and narrator, marked by genuine compassion and quick wit (the latter of which likens the pent-up fury of ghosts to “the usual incoherent-rap-star-going-postal at the annual Vibe Awards”). As a result, Koontz’s dialogue for Odd and friends (and enemies) is remarkably smooth. Even Koontz’s occasional attempt at touching on hot-button topics like religion go down without harm because they’re sugar-coated instead of politicized.

While this may not be the last we see of Odd, FOREVER is not likely to supplant its predecessor in the hearts of readers, and I don’t know that it ever could. But some episodes are clearly better than others, and I’m looking forward to the one Odd references about “a tight situation invovling three operators of an illegal crystal-meth lab and their pet crocodile, during which I might have wound up with one less leg, and possibly no testicles.” Stay tuned.