Wegener's jigsaw - Clare Dudman

This is a rich and fascinating novel that combines the story of one man's obsession with the extraordinary adventures of the Arctic's first explorers, and the painful and wonderful experience of love.

In this gripping and beautifully written book, Clare Dudman imaginatively recreates the life of the man whose theories of continental drift - derided in his lifetime - have revolutionised our perception of the world. Reaching record-breaking heights in hot air balloons, almost fatally injured in the First World War, and driven by a passion for ice and for a better understanding of the natural history of the world, Alfred Wegener was an extraordinary man. Dudman's descriptions of glaciers caving in and young men lost in the wilderness are thrilling, but WEGENER'S JIGSAW is also a story of courage: of Wegener's determination to prove his critics wrong, and of his wife's heartbreaking decision to let him go, to follow his dangerous - and ultimately deadly - dream.

Wegener's remarkable story is largely unknown, and Dudman - whose magnificent writing has already won her two awards - has created a novel that should become a classic.