Losing Touch - by Christian A. Larsen - A thoroughly entertaining first novel

4.5 of 5 Stars     Review copy

From the foreword by Piers Anthony.  The basic premise of Losing Touch is as follows...

"Suppose you were to discover that you had the ability to phase out and walk through walls, in the manner of a ghost.  Great!  You could visit forbidden places, get out of jail free, sneak peeks at your neighbor's private lives, get inside when you lock yourself out of your car or house.  But would it really be that simple?"

It all starts when Morgan Dunsmore falls off, or should I say through, his toilet. Larsen has honed his skills with the short story format over the years and it shows.  Even though Losing Touch is set in the world of the fantastic, the characters themselves are real, down to earth, as evidenced in this conversation between Morgan and his wife, Corrine.

"'Hand me my robe.'  Corrine took off her towel and wrapped it around her head.  'It's the principal of the thing.  Besides, I want to be home in time to pick up the kids.  You have a honey-do list as long as my arm--starting with replacing the broken foot on our washer.  Keep putting it off and it's going to get up and walk away the next time it hits a spin cycle.  Now stop looking at my boobs and hand me my robe.'"  I can actually hear my wife and I having such a conversation.

It's true, that Losing Touch requires the suspension of disbelief, but I found it easy to do, with the possible exception of the Chicago Bears making the playoffs.  That I found nearly impossible to believe.

I also enjoyed the bits where, with all that's going on, Morgan is listening to the banter on the sports-radio station.  It helps to keep the story grounded.

Losing Touch was published earlier in 2014 by Post Mortem Press and is available through Amazon.com both as a paperback and for the Kindle.

Highly recommended.