Once There Were Wolves is the second adult literary fiction novel by award-winning Australian author, Charlotte McConaghy. After an unconventional upbringing by parents who could not have been a more unlikely couple, twins Inti and Aggie Flynn are in Scotland. Inti, a biologist, is the leader of the Cairngorms Wolf Project, while Aggie is there because, after what happened in Alaska, the sisters are always together.

Even though the Scottish Parliament has approved the release of fourteen wolves into Cairngorms National Park, the local farmers, gamekeepers and hill walkers are all very resistant, all convinced that their livelihoods will be adversely affected, and either dubious or apathetic about the positive environmental effects the wolves will bring.

As Inti and her team observe, the wolves gradually leave the caged areas, begin mating, and a litter is produced. But the largest of the wolves is shot by a farmer, who claims he mistook it for a wild dog. The Chief Superintendent of the local police, Duncan MacTavish is treading a fine line, trying to keep the locals happy and uphold the law: the farmer is not charged.

But the attraction, the connection between Duncan and Inti, from the moment she helps him rescue a runaway mare, is electric. They succumb, but Inti also resists, not wanting the distraction from her work, or any involvement, and a good reason to resist would be Duncan’s ambivalence about the whole Wolf Project. Easier said than done.

Then a farmer dies, and his injuries might be due to a wolf attack: Inti doesn’t want to believe it. But if not a wolf, then who? Surely no one would kill a man just to see the wolves blamed? The victim, though, as well as showing how strongly opposed he was to the rewilding in several heated interactions with Inti, was more predator than prey, and others might have reason to want him gone.

Inti is an interesting character, passionate about wolves, strongly bonded to her twin, and afflicted with mirror-touch synaesthesia, an unusual condition that cause her to feel what she sees. Her passion results from time spent with their naturalist father, while her police detective mother’s exhortations to “toughen up” likely contributed to her later attitude and actions.

Flashbacks in Inti’s narrative gradually reveal what occurred to alter the twins: Aggie, strong and fierce, a leader and protector, eventually a linguistics teacher; Inti, living by her father’s code, all care and kindness, much in Aggie’s shadow; until they almost reverse roles, with Aggie mute and crippled by agoraphobia, a shadow to Inti, now angry and impulsive. “I think most of me got left behind in Dad’s forest. And now I’m all the things I hate.”

As well as including a wealth of information about wolves, McConaghy’s story also features quite a few toxic males, and their opposites. The murder-mystery element has enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing right up to the final reveal. Moving and hopeful, this is a fascinating page-turner.