Nine-year-old Louis Drax is a problem child: bright, precocious, deceitful, and dangerously, disturbingly accident prone.

When he falls off a cliff into a ravine, the accident seems almost predestined. The boy miraculously survives - but the family has been shattered. Louis' father has vanished, his mother is paralysed by shock, and Louis lies in a deep coma from which he may never emerge.

In a clinic in Provence, Dr. Pascal Dannachet tries to coax Louis back to consciousness. But the case defies medical logic, startling Pascal Dannachet out of his preconceptions, and drawing him inexorably into Louis' buried world. Only Louis holds the key to the mystery surrounding his fall - and he can't communicate. Or can he?

**********

I'd never heard of this book until someone from the book group I recently joined suggested this for our next meeting. It's interesting enough, and an unusual story, but the writing was a bit sloppy. The segments told from Louis' point of view work quite well, but those of Dr. Dannachet tend to be a bit tedious and repetitive. (Ironically, the story is at its most alive when narrated by a character who is close to death!) With a bit more skill, this could have been a very clever novel in the style of Ruth Rendell; as it is, it's a pretty good psychological tale that falls short of being *really* good.

RELEASE NOTES:

On a bench near the Queen St. E. entrance.