John Dale pushed the true-crime tale well toward the literary with Huckstepp in 2000. His latest book straddles even more genres: it starts out in true-crime territory with a suspicious death; becomes a family memoir-because the suspicious death was that of Dale’s grandfather; turns into, almost, fiction as Dale re-imagines the missing pieces of the puzzle; and has a long central core of transcripts from Harvey Malcolm’s diaries, which may or may not have been broadcast as a series of radio lectures on the ABC in Tasmania in the late 1930s. The thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) features heavily in the book as a motif for endangerment, mystery and beauty; and Errol Flynn gets more than a cameo. This is a brilliant and unique book. The disparate styles alternate seamlessly into a compelling whole, and Dale keeps the tone balanced between the dryness of reportage, the excitement of the chase and the residual sadness of getting to know a grandfather he never met. The only possible flaw in this book is that in crossing so many genres it may have difficulty finding a ‘home’ in many bookshops-do you shelve it in true crime, biography, even fiction? I’d recommend keeping it face-out all over the shop!

Tim Coronel is AB&P’s assistant editor

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