Out of Body

Take the tension of the ever-suspenseful wrong-man theme and torque it up a notch with a jolt of supernatural horror. That's what first-time novelist Baum, a TV writer (The Sender, etc.), has done in this dynamic fusion of crime drama and dark fantasy. Although set in the suburbs of Tacoma, Wash., the novel's true landscape is the tortured mind of narrator Denton Hake, a victim since childhood of blackouts during which his consciousness drifts from his body. Denton is newly paroled after serving a prison stretch for a crime he supposedly committed during one of these fugues. Suddenly, his out-of-body experiences begin dovetailing with fragmented memories of his father's suicide. Before he can complete the intense self-examination he needs to houseclean his psyche, he finds himself on death row, accused of the murder of a woman he was dating. Reluctant to build an alibi from unprovable facts gleaned in his discorporate state, Denton elects to dissociate his soul from his body and smoke the real murderer out, even though the ""dull normal"" self he leaves behind may commit suicide in his absence. Baum teases with the suggestion that Denton is living a paranoid psychotic fantasy, but he surrounds him with family and friends whose motives can't be trusted either. Their dark secrets, once revealed, create unpredictable plot twists that the author navigates with perfect control toward a harrowing finale. The novel's energy never flags, and Baum creates a thoroughly believable portrait of a man who rides the razor's edge between self-awareness and madness, knowing that in the world of harsh realities sketched here, his psychic gift is really a curse. (May)