Tasmania is a wild place, the home of the last great temperate rainforests on the planet. Somewhere in those forests, or perhaps in the sclerophyll scrublands of the north-cast, may still be lurking a thylacine, the famed Tasmanian tiger. Over the years, there has been no end of searching, so far with no result. Despite numerous reported sightings, all we know for certain is that the last one ever sighted, a female, died on 7 September 1936 in miserable captivity in Hobart Zoo.

The mythology surrounding the tiger and the inability to close the chapter on Australia’s most famous near-extinct animal with a definite conclusion provides the background for John Dale’s absorbing tale of his search for the truth about the events that led to his own grandfather’s violent death.