Excerpt from Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'Don't take any risks,' he warned. 'A couple of novices died up there last year.'

Leo recalls eating breakfast. They had gone to their favourite cafe near their hotel. He had eaten a fruit salad with granola and honey. 'Breakfast of the gods,' he had called it; pineapple, maracuya, mango and passion fruit. As he recalls it he tastes it again. Eleni had scoffed down a banana pancake with melted chocolate, and could not prevent the hot sauce dribbling down her chin. They had lingered over coffee. Afterwards they had returned to their hotel and picked up their heavy backpacks and set off for the bus station. There it was at last, the bus station. They were later than they had planned by over an hour.Would Eleni be alive now if they hadn't taken so long over breakfast? His memory stops at the bus station; he still cannot see any aspect of the journey in his mind. Perhaps it is better not to know, but he cannot seem to stop his thoughts racing. The holes are slowly filling up, and despite itself the brain will work until the job is completed.

From Random Acts of Heroic Love. Copyright Danny Scheinmann 2008. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of the pubilsher, St Martins.