The Lost DogMichelle De Kretser2007

Tom Loxley is holed up in a cottage in the bush, struggling to finish his book on Henry James, when his dog goes missing, trailing a length of orange twine. As Tom searches, it becomes clear that he needs to unravel other puzzles in his life and the story shifts between past and present, taking his parents' mixed-race marriage in India, their arrival in Australia in the 1970s, Tom's own failed marriage, and his current involvement with Nelly Zhang, an artist with her own secrets and mysteries.