“Ruth woke at four in the morning and her blurry brain said, ‘Tiger.’” In this first line of her debut novel, Australian writer McFarlane introduces a few key elements: insomnia, mental instability, and a more than fleeting hint of magic realism. Seventy-five-year-old widow Ruth Field lives alone in an increasingly dilapidated beach house in New South Wales. Or at least until page 8, that is, when Frida appears. Frida Young, a government-assigned carer, turns up unannounced and immediately makes herself indispensable. And yet there is something sinister about this woman arriving without any paperwork and gradually insinuating herself into Ruth’s life. “I’m not a stranger, and I’m not a friend – I’m your right arm,” she convinces Ruth.

As Ruth’s short-term memory starts failing, she writes the words “TRUST FRIDA” as an aide-mémoire in the front of her detective novel, evoking amnesia thrillers like S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep or the film Memento. However, McFarlane’s book is much more than a psychological crime novel inspired by real-life swindles. For one thing, it is a reflection on the sometimes misguided colonialist ventures of missionaries, and a subtle querying of racial and class distinctions.

[But the tiger – what about that tiger?]

(Full review in June 2014 issue of Third Way magazine.)