Borderlines by Michaela Wrong review – a gripping debut thriller

Set in a fledgling African state, this novel traces the human impact of lines drawn on a map

Like all good thrillers, the opening of Michela Wrong’s Borderlines reads like a climax. The bad deed has already been done, but the scene’s unexpected pleasure – and that of Borderlines in general – is that when trouble comes it does so with a damp whiff of realism, rather than the pyrotechnics of melodrama one might expect from a novel of political intrigue.

Paula Shackleton, the narrator, is being detained in the airport of an unnamed, troubled African country; she is already contemplating life in a local prison, her mind summoning up disturbing visions of future abuse. Blessedly, as she is a white, British lawyer, she is instead released and sent unceremoniously home to her expat villa in the fictional city of Lira. There, she begins to tell her story.

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