Adelmo Farandola doesn’t like people. In summer he roams the valleys, his only company a talkative, cantankerous old dog and a young mountain ranger who, Adelmo Farandola suspects, is spying on him.

When winter comes, man and dog are snowed in. With stocks of wine and bread depleted, they pass the time squabbling over scraps, debating who will eat the other first.

Spring brings a more sinister discovery that threatens to break Adelmo Farandola’s already faltering grip on reality: a man’s foot poking out of the receding snow.

"This strange little book stayed with me. Images slipped from the pages and lodged themselves in my mind: the beautiful but hostile mountain, the isolated cabin, the grumpy old man who refuses to be helped and the stray dog in need of a friend. It is a book full of humour, grit and empathy that made me laugh and cry in equal measure."