Wide-ranging, suggestive, and daring, a Bolano story is just as likely to concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend, the history of a porn star or two embittered police detectives debating their favourite weapons: his plots go anywhere and everywhere and they always surprise. Consider the title piece: a young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor, just as his soul is departing his body, it realizes strange doings are afoot - and what follows next defies the imagination (except Bolano's own, of course).