How do you make sure a crime that hasn’t happened yet, never does? That’s the critical question facing Odd Thomas, the young man with a unique ability to commune with restless spirits and help them find justice and peace. But this time, it’s the living who desperately need Odd on their side. Three helpless innocents will be brutally executed unless Odd can intervene in time. Who the potential victims are and where they can be found remain a mystery. The only thing Odd knows for sure is who the killer will be: the homicidal stranger who tried to shoot him dead in a small-town parking lot.  With the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock riding shotgun and a network of unlikely allies providing help along the way, Odd embarks on an interstate game of cat and mouse with his sinister quarry. He will soon learn that his adversary possesses abilities that may surpass his own and operates in service to infinitely more formidable foes, with murder a mere prelude to much deeper designs. Traveling across a landscape haunted by portents of impending catastrophe, Odd will do what he must and go where his path leads him, drawing ever closer to the dark heart of his long journey—and, perhaps, to the bright light beyond.

該怎麼認定一件尚未引爆的犯罪事件永遠都不會發生呢？擁有特異功能、能與靈界溝通的奧德‧湯瑪斯平時面對這些棘手的問題，試著幫忙靈魂尋求正義與和平。但這次，卻是活人迫切需要奧德的幫忙。如果奧德沒有及時介入，就會有三個無辜的人慘遭處決。到底誰才是受害者？而這些受害者又在哪裡？目前還是一團謎。奧德唯一肯定的是，兇手即是那個在小鎮停車場試圖要開槍射殺他的殺人魔。藉由希區考克的靈魂和一群意料之外的夥伴一路上的幫助，開始一場貓捉老鼠的遊戲。很快地他就會發現他的對手並非等閒之輩，這場謀殺只是一個開端罷了，還有更多可怕的敵人以及驚心動魄的計畫在後頭。經歷過重重詭異事件及面對即將發生的災難，奧德只能繼續勇往直前，面對旅程中最黑暗的一面，亦或許等著他的是光明的一面。