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Cover image courtesy of publisher.
y separately published work icon Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger single work   children's fiction   children's   mystery  
Is part of Kizmet Frank Woodley , 2015 series - author children's fiction (number 1 in series)
Issue Details: First known date: 2015... 2015 Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Kizmet, Gretchen and Detective Spencer are called to investigate serious claims of livestock being attacked by a creature in the bush . . . and the possible sighting of a Tasmanian tiger. But Tassie tigers are extinct, aren't they? Can Kizmet get to the bottom of this mystery?' (Publisher's abstract.)

Affiliation Notes

  • Thylacines and the Anthropocene

    Detective Spencer, plucky youngster Kizmet and her currawong companion Gretchen are investigating claims that a "giant Tassie tiger has been terrorising goats and other livestock" (11). Local scientist Dr Simpson acts as a guide, with years of experience attempting to "reassemble the entire thylacine genome from the fragments we've gathered" (44). They discover that Dr Simpson has inadvertently contaminated his own genetic code with thylacine DNA, turning him into a were-thylacine. 

    Though written as a curious mystery for children, Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tigers engages with two tropes typical of thylacines narratives in Australian literature: the animal's wolfish, sheep-thief associations, and scientific research into a possible genetic recovery of the species.

    Both of these can be traced to colonial assumptions about the thylacine which, in turn, motivated policies of eradication. The thylacine eluded early scientific classification – was it a tiger or wolf, or more kangaroo than canine? Settlers themselves largely understood the thylacine as a southern wolf, and assumed it posed an inherent threat to sheep and other livestock. Carol Freeman explains that images of the thylacine were laden with "signifiers of violence and danger" (53), and it was made more monstrous and predatory as colonial agriculture expanded inland. Gothic and even vampiric associations were rooted in a larger existential dread felt by settlers in the strange new wilderness of lutruwita / Tasmania. 

    Tim Winton's In the Winter Dark also features an unseen predator that may be a thylacine, Julia Leigh's The Hunter follows a man obsessed with hunting a thylacine to harvest its genetic material, and Krissy Kneen's Wintering explores conservation themes alongside monstrous were-thylacines. 

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2015 .
      image of person or book cover 7380165155976488667.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 112p.
      Description: illus.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 29th July 2015
      ISBN: 9781743485835

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger by Frank Woodley Dianne Bates , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Buzz Words , September 2015;

— Review of Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger Frank Woodley , 2015 single work children's fiction
Review : Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger Pauline Hosking , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking about Books for Children , September vol. 30 no. 4 2015; (p. 38)

— Review of Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger Frank Woodley , 2015 single work children's fiction
Review : Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger Pauline Hosking , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking about Books for Children , September vol. 30 no. 4 2015; (p. 38)

— Review of Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger Frank Woodley , 2015 single work children's fiction
Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger by Frank Woodley Dianne Bates , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Buzz Words , September 2015;

— Review of Kizmet and the Case of the Tassie Tiger Frank Woodley , 2015 single work children's fiction
Last amended 2 May 2022 10:42:51
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