Egon and Axel meet on a field trip to the caves of Belgium. The amoral Axel fascinates Egon, and repels him, and the two stay in touch, each glad to have made a friend so unlike himself. In college, Egon frequents Axel's Amsterdam flat, where sex and drugs are plentiful; later, as a geologist, Egon reads tabloid accounts of his friend's exploits as a drug dealer. Wherever he turns, there is Axel -- in the news, on his doorstep, and in his wife's past. When his marriage falls apart, again he seeks out Axel, who sends him to Asia carrying a suitcase with mysterious contents. Egon will not return; far from home with his life at risk, he will learn the secret of the cave where his odd deathward journey began.

Krabbe, like Ian McEwan and John Banville, draws on the whole European tradition of haunting literary realism. The Cave is a stark, powerful, unforgettable novel.