As in the four previous novels featuring Odd, the young cook communicates with the dead – whether he likes it or not. “The dead don’t talk. I don’t know why,” he muses in Odd Apocalypse. But, he explains, they do try to communicate and he occasionally finds himself their reluctant confidant.

“The series in my mind is six or seven books,” says Koontz. “Odd is on a spiritual journey. I’ve said from the beginning he’s on a journey towards absolute humility. How I will write that in book seven, I have no idea, not having absolute humility myself. But I always have to be writing something that challenges me or interests me.”