“Out of Body” by Jeffrey Ford is a nice quick read.

A librarian goes about his life following some fixed patterns. One day a guy attempts a robbery in a shop while the librarian is buying his breakfast. The guy kills the cashier and and hits the librarian on the head. After regaining consciousness again, the librarian returns home. In the night, while his body is asleep, his ghost leaves the body. He meets another ghost who teaches him about the workings of the night world. As to be expected there are dangers the ghosts face and special capabilities they have.

This is all nice and conceptually interesting and it fills the first half of the book. But that alone wouldn’t make a worthwhile read.

After the librarian has learned all there is to learn about the night world, the vampire enters the stage. Now the pace speeds up. It gets dangerous, bloody and messy. And connections appear as far back as to the robbery at the beginning of the book.

While offering nothing really new, “Out of Body” is a nicely written novella with some suspense and some horror.