What must it be like to hold a wild bird not much larger than a small child, and know for certain that within your arms, you are holding the last one of a species? Inspired by a true story of 19th century European explorers who killed an entire species of a beautiful Penguin-like bird called the Great Auk, in order to sell the carcasses to museums around the world, this is a tale of a young man joining a hunting ship to the Arctic in the hope of finding a remaining live specimen.

A historical novel about love, obsession and extinction.