Squeak2017 – 5 stars
This is a perfectly crafted novel of music and mountaineering and mourning. The characters live on in your head long after the novel is finished, such is their vitality and truthfulness on the page. Their grief is necessarily played out among callous paparazzi requiring stratagems for self protection over and above those needed by ordinary people dealing with loss. The minor characters are equally authentic without delaying the flow of the narrative.
The different arcs of the plot move fluidly from one to the next, from pop concert to Base Camp, from lyrics to mountains. The writing is pacy, dynamic; the sentences short and sparse, not a word wasted. A recommended read.
Roz Morris, author 