The High Mountains of Portugal

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IN LISBON IN 1904 a man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artefact that - if he can find it - would redefine history. Travelling in one of Europe's earliest automobiles, Tomás sets out in search of this strange treasure. Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the centre of a murder mystery of his own, and is drawn into the consequences of Tomás's quest. Fifty years on, a Canadian senator seeks refuge in his ancestral village in Northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old adventure will come to its stirring conclusion. A quest through the twentieth century, The High Mountains of Portugal tells a tale of great love and great loss. Written with all the warmth, wit and colour one would expect from the author of Life of Pi, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century - and through the human heart.