A mystery and a love story, an exploration of art and nature, a meditation on ageing and the passage of time. It offers a contemporary novel which examines the weight of history as well as different ways of trying to grasp the world.

Tom Loxley is holed up in a cottage in the bush, trying to finish his book on Henry James, when his dog goes missing, trailing a length of orange twine. As Tom searches it becomes clear that he needs to unravel other puzzles in his life and the story shifts between past and present, taking in his parents' mixed-race marriage in India, their arrival in Australia in the 1970s, Tom's own failed marriage, and his current involvement with Nelly Zhang, an artist with her own secrets and mysteries.

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008.