In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the location of an extraordinary artefact that – if it exists – would redefine history. Travelling in one of Europe’s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this treasure. Some thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist finds himself at the centre of a murder mystery.

Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he comes to his ancestral village with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee.

The High Mountains of Portugal takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century – and through the human soul.