The basis for the major motion picture 5 Flights Up starring Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman.New York City is on high alert - a gasoline truck is "stuck" in the Midtown tunnel and the driver has fled. Through panic and gridlock, Alex and Ruth must transport their beloved old dachshund - whose back legs are suddenly paralyzed - to the animal hospital, using a cutting board as a stretcher. But this is also the weekend when Alex and Ruth must sell the apartment in which they have lived for most of their adult lives. Over the course of forty-eight hours, as the mystery of the missing truck driver terrorizes the city and the dachshund's life hangs in the balance, the bidding war over their apartment becomes a barometer for collective hope and despair. Told in shifting points of view - Alex's, Ruth's, and the little dog's - Heroic Measures is a moving, deft novel about urban anxiety and the love that deepens over years.