I was attracted to Passage because of its theme: past life near death experiences. I’ve always found these fascinating, a glimpse into a possible alternate universe–whether spiritual or medical has never been conclusively proven.

And that’s the tack that Connie Willis takes in this fat but very readably novel. Two very different people are trying to prove the nature of NDEs once and for all. Dr. Joanna Lander is involved in talking patients who’ve had NDEs, trying to document them to see if anything scientific can be found out. Her arch-nemesis is Mr. Mandrake, a man who’s so set on proving that the NDE is spiritual that he leads the vulnerable patients to tell them what he wants them to say.

Dr. Richard Wright, however, has found a way to create the NDEs using drugs. Joanna eventually signs on as his assistant, and after rejecting at least two thirds of the good doctor’s current volunteers as unsuitable starts “going under” herself. And each time finds herself in the same, somehow familiar location.

There is so much going on in this book that I’m surprised the author was able to hold it all together…but she did. This is a well-written, gripping story with numerous sub-plots and believable characters (some of whom you wish you could shake until they rattle). Pretty much everything in its 700-plus pages has some bearing on at least two other plot elements. Sooner or later, all the different threads come together into a series of those little “aha!” moments. I was very, very surprised at the way the story played out—something that doesn’t happen too often in this climate of boilerplate books. I had a very hard time putting the book down.

I’d never read anything by this author before, but I am truly glad that I fished this one out of the library sale box for reading. Fortunately, I had another Connie Willis book in my pile…and guess what I’m reading now?