Kashmir, the Himalayan foothills.

Seven westerners on a misguided trekking expedition are taken hostage by separatist militants.

Kate Cox and Ethan Hughes, a troubled young English couple, are among their number. At the mercy of hardened ideologues they cannot understand, the captives are pushed into a claustrophobic hell of shifting allegiances, where love and survival seem destined to collide. As the hostages struggle to hold themselves together, so those at home begin to fall apart. Rachel is tormented by the memory of her cold and dishonest relationship with her sister, Kate; Ethan's father, unwilling to confront cruel family truths, is ready to blame everybody but himself. Redemption depends upon the hostages' safe return, but as the prospect of their release fades so do their hopes of escape - and they already know the penalty for dissent . . . In the vein of Alex Garland's THE BEACH, BENEATH THE DIAMOND SKY is an absorbing psychological examination of how character fragments under pressure. It is a beautifully written, blackly funny and terrifying read.