Silvio Huonder Valentinsnacht (Valentine’s Night) Nagel & Kimche, August 2006, 192 pp ISBN: 978-3-312-00379-2 How’s this for a date with a difference? Fedo Pullmann, a man approaching forty, arranges to meet someone on the basis of a contact advertisement. After the cinema they return to her flat, where they sleep together. Shortly afterwards, Fedo discovers that this particular woman was not in fact the one he had made the date with. What is more, she has become pregnant. When she says that men cannot understand what an abortion means for a woman, Fedo flippantly replies that he could match the pain by sacrificing one of his fingers - a practice he has just been reading about in the National Geographic. When she, Katarina, flies into a rage and disappears for a few days, he concludes that she has gone to have an abortion and, in a drunken stupor, performs the amputation on himself. Way-out? Perhaps. Yet this admittedly unlikely plot gives Huonder the opportunity to examine a number of subtle and intriguing questions, relating primarily to the nature of coincidence but to science and prediction as well. Fedo, a meteorologist, proves an unexpectedly engaging protagonist, making Huonder’s novel doubly pleasurable to read. With a touch of Nick Hornby’s appeal, here, in short, is a most original page-turner and a thought-packed study rolled into one.