The White Lie

Who killed Scott of the Antarctic?

The White Lie is an up-market historical crime thriller based on the legend of Captain Scott - the man who failed to reach the South Pole before his Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen, and then died with four brave comrades on the journey home. The men might have lived if Apsley Cherry-Garrard, sent out to meet them, had gone just ten miles further into the white hell of the final storm. But ‘Cherry’, peering South through thick spectacles, turned back. He lived a long life, tormented by depression and illness, and thoughts of what might have been.

This is the legend that has survived more than a century. Until now.

1. Cherry-Gerard’s great nephew - Falcon Cherry-Garrard - is a journalist obsessed with clearing Cherry’s name. When the explorer’s stone tomb at the family estate of Lamer in Hertfordshire is opened for restoration work, a wax pouch is found containing a slim diary. A note explains it was found in the tent, in Scott’s frozen hand, and marked: ‘For Cherry’s eyes only’. He alone read the truth: Scott and his men did not die of the cold, or starvation, or illness - they were murdered.

There were three other expeditions in Antarctica as Scott raced to the Pole: a German party in the Weddell Sea equipped with caterpillar tractors, a Japanese ‘dash’ patrol on skies at the Bay of Whales, and the Norwegians on the Ross Ice Shelf.

Falcon is determined to reveal the truth and clear Cherry’s name - but the more he digs into the past, the more dangerous the present becomes.