February 22, 2010
The theoretical physics concept known as the Many-Worlds Interpretation, in which “everything that is at all possible exists somewhere,” forms the backdrop for Zeh's second novel (after Eagles and Angels
), an engrossing if enigmatic story of a murder and its aftermath. German physicists Oskar and Sebastian are both friends and rivals, who have drifted apart after the latter's marriage. While Sebastian is driving his 10-year-old son to camp, the boy disappears during a stop at a gas station. When a woman phones Sebastian and tells him, “Dabbelink must go,” he interprets this to mean that to obtain his kidnapped son's freedom, he must get rid of Dabbelink, a bicycling companion of his wife linked to a medical scandal. Erudite digressions and vivid characters—such as a detective with a trusting nature who learns always “to assume the opposite of what she was thinking”—combine with a devastating 11th-hour reveal to make a memorable intellectual thriller.