The village of St Piran, on the very toe of Cornwall, is a sleepy little place. Not much happens there. Until one evening, an angry young man and an arrogant politician have a very public disagreement in a harbourside inn. The consequences of their argument, and the deadly wager they strike, will cascade down the decades. 

Tom Horsmith is an idealist. Young, driven, and smart, his bar-room humiliation of Monty Causley could have destroyed the career of a lesser politician. But every effort either man makes to put the past behind them draws them deeper into a web of circumstances neither can escape, leading them both a long way from St Piran, onto a colossal iceberg drifting south away from Greenland, where their only companion is a very hungry bear. A heart-stopping tale of ambition, friendship, love, and disaster. And a bear.