Dead people try to communicate with a short-order cook, who serves as a small desert town's reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy with a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill, and he is rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn.

Finding himself happily married, living far from his New York City origins, and anticipating the birth of his first child, Jeremy Marsh receives a mysterious message that reopens wounds from the past and changes the course of his marriage.

In the unique world of Pico, Odd, a hero who lives between the living and the dead, takes a stand against evil in a battle where there are no innocent bystanders.