Gavin Maxwell

"Gavin Maxwell was a romantic, self-destructive, aristocratic adventurer who worked as secret agent, shark fisherman, racing driver, poet and travel writer. His books on Iraq, Sicily and Morocco were acclaimed, but his fame as a writer rests on his bestselling story of the otters he lived with in a remote cottage on the west coast of Scotland, Ring of Bright Water. Maxwell's private life was every bit as turbulent. His homosexuality was masked by the love of a number of women, for whom he was a serially unsatisfactory partner. This biography is a magnificent evocation of the man, his time and the places and animals that formed such an important part of it. Never was the simple life of a nature-loving conservationist pursued by so complicated a character."--