Book excerpt: An admirable doctor in charge of a small, isolated hospital in outback Australia swaps his wife’s second stillborn baby for an identical twin born to an impoverished farmer’s wife who already has seven other children. Both mothers are unaware of the deception. Only one person, apart from the doctor, knows what happened, but no one believes him as he is considered to be mentally deficient. The doctor leaves for Ireland immediately afterwards so that his crime, committed on impulse, will remain undetected. The stolen twin is destined for a future of privilege as the heir to her aristocratic mother’s wealth and status, while her sister in Australia faces a life of hardship and loneliness. The differing fortunes of the twins, the doctor’s guilty conscience, the burden of the man who knows, the jealousy of an older sister, the fate of the mothers and the ambitions of the older generation, all combine to create conflict that compels the action forward throughout the novel until it reaches a dramatic and explosive climax.