We never find out Martin David's real name. Nor does he ever really explain why he needs to hunt down the last Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, on the island of Tasmania. We only know that it is of paramount importance that Martin David, or M, finds the almost extinct animal and brings back her genetic material to his bosses at "the company" with the utmost of secrecy. However he had counted without the inquisitive and precocious nature of Sass and Bike, the two children of his landlady, Lucy, whose husband disappeared in the bush the year before.
This is a first novel, and it says much for the story-telling skills of its young Australian author, Julia Leigh, that it is not the macho boys' own tale it could so easily have become. There are large tracts of the novel when M does little more than walk for days, light fires and wait in vain for the thylacine, but such is the power of Leigh's writing that the tension never lets up and observation is never sacrificed to pace. This could have made for a somewhat static read, but instead the smallest of details - setting a snare or skinning a wallaby - are taut and credible, while there is enough in the intriguing but subtle story of Lucy and her two children to continually power the narrative forward.
But most of all, it is the subtle emotional development of M that keeps the reader hooked; that and the enduring fascination of the wild in Leigh's capable hands. Indeed when looking for literary influences it would probably be more useful to think of Joseph Conrad, for Leigh has his talent for turning the wilderness into a protagonist, while showing that human nature is probably the largest wilderness of all.
Louise East is an Irish Times journalist