Gavin Maxwell was a romantic, self-destructive, aristocratic adventurer who worked as secret agent, shark fisherman, racing driver, poet and travel writer. His fame rested on the bestselling story of the otters he brought back from Iraq and raised and lived with on the west coast of Scotland, Ring of Bright Water. Maxwell’s private life was turbulent. His essential homosexuality was masked by the love of a number of women, for whom he was a serially unsatisfactory partner. Never was the simple life pursued by so complicated a character.

‘…totally absorbing, wonderfully written and very penetrating … What an extraordinary story!’ - David Attenborough