by Fiona McFarlane
Ruth is in her 80s and lives alone in a house by the sea in Australia. She is a widower and her two sons, Jeff and Phil, live away. The only thing she has for comfort and companionship are her two cats and her memories. She is happy and she gets by. The only thing she is slightly troubled by is the feeling that some nights she has a visitor - a tiger. She thinks she can hear it in her living room, slinking around. She telephones Jeff, her nearest son, in the middle of the night to tell him about her fears, but she can tell he is slightly irritated by the interruption of sleep, and especially with a farcical, fantastical tale of a tiger in the house.
The next day, she gets another visitor, this time in human form. She is Frida and she says she's been sent by the government as home help for a few hours every morning. Ruth lets her in without many questions and even Jeff, on being telephoned and informed of this, does not seem to be surprised or anxious about this sudden arrival of a very larger-than-life character. Frida fusses, cleans, cooks, posts mail, takes calls, shops, looks after bills, and eventually, but quietly, moves in.
If this already hasn't started to sound unsettling and unnerving, then the rest of the book definitely will. Poor Ruth seems totally incapable of halting Frida's intrusiveness. You feel so sorry for her helplessness, and angry with her sons for not hearing any alarm bells ringing with the whole situation. The author does a very good job of drawing you deeper into the suspense and the horror of a poor defenceless old lady up against a big, bustling, matronly, bullying, dark character of a lady that is Frida. It cannot end well.
The tiger continues to make appearances throughout the book, and you start to wonder who or what this animal actually is or stands for. Is it out to harm or protect. Ruth does not always seem to fear the animal's visits, in fact she seems to enjoy to seek out evidence of its existence in her home.
This is the author's first novel, and if you love mystery and psychological suspense and the workings of the mind, then this is for you.
