The Castle in the Pyrenees, By Jostein Gaardner

A philosophical hit-and-run with too much missing

Jostein Gaardner, the author of Sophie's World, hangs his philosophical hat on another hook, this time using the accidental killing of an old woman by a young couple as an excuse for asking lots of questions about materialism and whether we have souls.

But the story, and the couple themselves, are almost too intriguing on their own for his digressions to be anything but irritating. Why did the young couple hit-and-run? Did they really believe she wasn't there, as it seemed afterwards, when no one reported her missing or injured? And did they really see her later, apparently come back from the dead? It's all discussed when the couple meet again many years later and ponder what really happened.