No one, least of all Odd Thomas himself, could have imagined his ever leaving Pico Mundo, the small desert town that nurtured him all his life and the locus of all he holds dear: his vibrant friends, his ghostly confidants, and the place where he loved and lost his soul mate, the irreplaceable Stormy Llewellyn. Yet leave it he has, to embrace the solitude and peace of an isolated monastery high in the western mountains as he tries to find a way to live fully again.

But Odd has a knack for finding himself in the way of trouble—even among the eccentric monks in their sanctuary. For a killer is stalking the ancient, holy halls and Odd is about to confront an enemy who eclipses any he has yet encountered.