When Guy Edwardes returns from a single handed yachting voyage to the Arctic, he is a changed man. Then tragedy strikes, provoking his long-time partner, Karen, and a friend, Nick Allan, to find out what had happened to him 'up there'. What they eventually discover is the core of this story, the story of a man's soul stripped bare. This recollection by Allan is an attempt to piece together a chain of events and make sense of Edwardes' conduct. But in doing so, Allan gives us a powerful evocation of a voyage to the icy waters of the Svalbard archipelago, a yarn of friendship and of human endeavour.

Richard Woodman once again conjures credible human characters in a novel of unusual power, mirroring in the fate of a single man the obscured plight of many more.