Kinda sad to say, but this series might have jumped the shark already. Everything that made the first volume so charming -- a modest young man, deeply embedded in a humble small-town life, surrounded by loving yet eccentric friends, and gifted/cursed with only one extraordinary ability -- has gotten completely blown out of proportion by this fourth volume. Let's just say there is some heavy-duty Saving the World involved here, as well as numerous physical and psychic abilities never even hinted at before. Plot points just dangle all over the place, with Koontz seemingly unable or uninterested in tucking them in; while characters just randomly pop up and randomly disappear. I'll pretend I never read this book, if the author just promises to let Odd Thomas head home to Pico Mundo.