Dear Doctor Woodruff, I hope you don't mind me writing to you. I think I'm your daughter.... This international bestseller is a startlingly assured first novel of deception, ambiguity, and shattering revelations. At the height of his career, a British surgeon has found success in both the hospital and at home. He and his wife have everything they want out of life, except the child she longs for, the child Dr. Woodruff secretly believes he may never be ready to parent. Suddenly, the delicate equilibrium of their relationship is blown apart by the arrival of shocking news. Deep in the desolate sub-Arctic wilderness of Canada where Woodruff lived and worked years before, a woman claims he is the father of her thirteen-year-old twins. Woodruff knows it cannot be true -- but DNA tests don't lie. To make sense of the impossible, he must return to that frozen wilderness, where no rules and few laws apply. Leaving his shattered relationship behind, he finds that his well-guarded secrets have even deeper and more sinister layers. But the people he once knew in that godforsaken place guard secrets of their own, and no one -- least of all the ruthless woman at the dark core of this maelstrom -- will help him uncover the truth. The past quickly gains a stranglehold, threatening to unravel everything Woodruff has built -- his marriage, his career. And a man who has made one mistake may pay dearly for another -- and risk destroying his entire future.... A Bertelsmann Book Club International Book of the Month A Literary Guild Main Selection Shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award Shortlisted for the Hay Festival Welsh Book of the Year