What do you do when your wife abducts your children? This was the question facing Douglas Galbraith when, in 2003, he returned home to Scotland from a few days' work in London.

The house was silent, empty and locked; his four and six-year-old sons' pyjamas lay on the bedroom floor. And on the doormat, confirmation from the Post Office of a forwarding address - in Japan. He has not seen them since.

But my son, my son is infinitely more than a personal tale of sudden loss and one man's attempts to find his sons. Writing with astonishing range and insight, Galbraith tackles the deepest questions about who we are and how we treat each other. Here is an intensely provocative journey through complex and controversial territory: child murder, tsunami, international conventions, hatred, cultures at war.

my son, my son is a searing memoir and a call to arms which will provoke passionate debate. It has a haunting eloquence and, against the odds, a grim sense of humour. It goes to the very heart of relations between parents and children, men and women, and between races - to the heart of what it is to be alive.