Markus Werner Am Hang (On The Edge) S. Fischer Verlag, July 2004. 190 pp. ISBN 3-10-091066-4 Two men meet in a crowded restaurant in the Swiss canton of Ticino. Thomas Clarin is a divorce lawyer whose professional experience of marriage has only reinforced his own desire to remain detached and play the field. The other man, Thomas Loos, is older and sterner, disgruntled with the world and in mourning for his wife. Sitting on his own, he does not welcome Clarin's intrusion, and at first it seems that they have little to talk about. But gradually they enter into a heated debate. Loos is odd, perhaps even mad, but his intensity is compelling. Clarin feels a strange fascination for this eccentric and sombre-looking man. Their protracted discussion is continued over dinner the following evening and little by little the pair begin to reveal themselves. Loos talks of his wife, his perfect marriage, and his wife's tragic death in an accident in Ticino, where she had gone to recover from an illness. Clarin talks of Valerie, one of his many ex-girlfriends, to whom he had said goodbye in this very Ticino restaurant exactly a year previously. Bizarrely, dates and places coincide, but otherwise there seems little to connect the two men's stories, until some unnerving coincidences start to emerge. When Loos disappears before another meeting can take place, Clarin begins to guess the disturbing truth and his insouciant self-assurance is suddenly gone. What if Valerie hadn't taken her dismissal as lightheartedly as he had assumed? And is Loos, in full knowledge of what had occurred, backing him into a corner? Markus Werner describes the events of three fateful days in the atmospheric surroundings of southernmost Switzerland. Writing in crystal-clear and measured prose, he quietly builds up the tension, turning the clash between two world views into a philosophical and psychological thriller. And the sinister sting in the tail sends you back to the beginning to read the story all over again. This is a subtle and suspenseful novel that draws the reader deep inside the minds of two men who couldn't be more different and yet are fatally linked.