Supernatural tale about a man with the ability to have out-of-body experiences. A terrible incident occurs (murdered?) and his spirit cannot return to his body. He must silently wander the Earth trying to solve the mystery of his "death". Spoilers ahead.

[Ian]

This is an audio book I listened to sometime around 2003 or 2004.

I think the tale is told in the first person, that is, it's the main character who is narrating his story to the reader.

He already has the ability to leave his body and the first part of the story he describes how he does this and where his spirit goes. Then tragedy strikes as he is murdered during one of his out-of-body-experiences. It leaves him unable to return to his body and his spirit is left to silently wander the Earth.

He visits known locations and seeks out his family and friends, but he cannot communicate with them to let them know he is still there.

The remainder of the story is about how he tries to solve the mystery of his "murder". I think he has the ability to visit people, places and locations by just thinking about them. He also follows the events leading on from his death, which I think involves him watching the detectives on the case. He may also be trying to work out how he can communicate with family, friends, police, etc. to help solve the mystery.

Possible spoiler: (view spoiler)[I think he finds out that he may be the victim of a serial killer. This leads him to look at previous victims' murder scenes and evidence to try and work out who the killer might be, even though frustratingly he can't tell the detectives what he finds out. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the name of the serial killer might be in the title of the book. (hide spoiler)]

Thanks!

[Sue]

Probably not your book, but this made me think of The Ka of Gifford Hillary, an old Dennis Wheatley book and one of the guilty pleasures of my youth. However I don’t remember much of the plot beyond the fact that the title character was murdered during one of his out of body experiences.