When the bridge over a gorge in Peru breaks, five people are plunged to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a witness, wishing to explain the ways of God to his fellow man, examines the lives of these five, believing that this will lead him to find a reason for the fatal accident. The questions he raises concern life and death; chance and God; faith and unbelief. Whatever answers are to be found contain an affirmation, if not of God, then of the powers of love. ‘Few writers have better captured the vanities and complexities of the ruling classes in Spanish South America’ The Times ‘There are books that haunt you down the years ... The Bridge of San Luis Rey is of this kind’ Independent