Love and the Platypus

by Nicholas Drayson

Which is the greater mystery: the breeding habits of the platypus or the workings of the human heart?
In 1883 young British naturalist William Caldwell arrives in Australia with a mission: to determine for the scientific record whether platypuses really are egg-laying mammals. But first he must travel overland to the Burnett River in Queensland, where he intends to set up camp. On his journey he is by turns hindered and assisted by a cast of characters, including a drunken bullocky and an inscrutable, poetical bushman. Once there, William commences his investigations and encounters the local Aboriginal people, enlisting their help and ultimately learning their tragic history. He also meets a young blind woman with many closely held secrets of her own.
Love and the Platypus is a delightful, captivating novel that examines the obsessive nature of scientific enquiry and its environmental consequences, and the wonders of nature and of romantic love

(From Publisher).

Nicholas Drayson is a novelist and naturalist. His first novel, Confessing a Murder, was critically acclaimed in the UK and US, and short-listed for The Age Book of the Year. His essay 'Strictly for the Birds' won the 2003 inaugural international WildCare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize.
Born and raised in England, he now lives in Australia, so instead of newts and sticklebacks in his pond, he now has frogs and galaxias. He is consultant to the National Museum of Australia on platypus acquisitions.

Unique Australian characters seen through the eyes of a Scotsman! Insightful details, scientific procedures; the historic setting is captured authentically and lots of facts included effortlessly.