A good friend of mine, Yossi Brain, died in an avalanche. He was climbing El Presidente, a 5,700-metre mountain in Ecuador’s Apolobamba mountain range with a climbing client, Dana Witzel, and two other climbers when an avalanche caught him and Dana. It wasn’t a big avalanche. Not one of those tides that sweep half the mountain away, just a slide of snow. In fact, it was so negligible that the other two climbers were unaffected. They scrambled over to Yossi and Dana as fast as they could but it was too late: they were both dead.

In the mountains, you can do everything right, take all the recommended precautions, and still end up dead. Just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was what happened to Yossi. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Silent Land is about a husband and wife who are also in the wrong place at the wrong time. Skiers, they wake for the early snow, only to be caught in an avalanche. They survive, however, but when they return to their village they find it entirely empty. There is no one there. Nor are they able to contact anyone outside. And their attempts to escape end with them circled back to where they started from.

They are good couple: Jake and Zoe love each other. In some ways, The Silent Land is a portrayal of a marriage, a marriage that works. Yes, there are the usual compromises and irritations, but it’s a marriage that is the making of both of them. And then it is tested – and found strong.

The Silent Land is a story of love, and loss, and the silence between the worlds. It’s a mystery and an unveiling and an invitation. It’s a story that stands on the borders of dream and verity, where we stand too although we think ourselves on solid ground. It’s a story that lingers long after the reading.

Highly recommended.