In its July 20 issue, the influential Publishers Weekly endorsed The Third Man Factor in a prepublication review. Here is the article:The Third Man Factor: Surviving the ImpossibleJohn Geiger. Weinstein, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-1-60286-107-7

A scientific mystery or divine intervention is how Geiger, the editorial board editor at the Globe and Mail and author of Frozen in Time, describes "The Third Man Factor," the human knack of facing deprivation and possible death with an unseen presence pointing the path to survival. He researched these visitations for six years, chronicling their history in harrowing life-and-death events with mountaineers, sailors, divers, aviators and polar explorers. It is to Geiger's credit that he stresses the very human need to endure and survive through critical times in the included anecdotes over the sometimes convoluted scientific jargon, especially the gripping tales of the last 9/11 survivor Ron DiFrancesco, NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger aboard the Mir space station and merchant seaman Kenneth Cooke, who paddled in shark-infested waters. Whether this "guardian angel" factor is neurological or divine, Geiger's fresh, insightful book will tell readers "things that are not easily explainable, but no less real for that." (Sept.)