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Lou is a good judge of character – she was a Customs Officer at the airport before yet another wave of “the virus” sent Melbourne back into lockdown, and she was made redundant. Her life now revolves around her nineteen-year-old son, Samuel. She’s suspicious of his girlfriend, Jessica, knowing instantly her perfect manners and sweet smile are fake. But despite her misgivings, she hopes that Samuel is staying with Jessica when yet another lockdown is announced, and he doesn’t return home in time for the eight-o’clock curfew. When she can’t contact Samuel at all, she starts to panic, despite Samuel’s father, Marko, telling her it’s just the alcohol she’s quaffing.

Lou is an interesting character, aware that the life she feels nostalgia for, is “a life I never really had”. Samuel is her focus, yet she is realistic about him and knows he is of an age when he will soon strike out on his own – hopefully eventually with a granny-flat for her. Lou thinks she has raised her son well: “I’d always, always, taught him to do the right thing, to be honest.” Samuel does contact her, but her instincts tell her something is off: “I’m trained to spot these things”.

Getting no help from Marko, who now has a family of his own and sees Lou as a nuisance that threatens their stability, Lou contacts a private investigator to help her find out what has really happened to Samuel. When they find out things are seriously amiss, the PI encourages her to contact the police. The reader discovers there are reasons why she is reluctant to do that, multiple reasons in fact – and finds that Lou herself might not be following her own advice regarding openness: What if the truth doesn’t set you free?

The setting of a pandemic lock-down adds a dimension of claustrophobia and familiarity to the atmosphere. And this is a ratcheted-up lock-down, with police and the military patrolling the streets. And despite there being plenty of traffic around, there are few pedestrians, so being followed home from a permitted exercise session, or seeing the shadow of someone at your door, are very creepy experiences.

The plot races along, with plenty of mis-directions, and reveal after reveal. The reader (well this one anyway) finds themself going back to re-read bits to see how they have misconstrued events. Lou really is the main character, the only other one that gets some depth is Samuel, but fleetingly. Marko is manipulative and selfish, and hard to understand. We find out a bit about Jessica, but don’t get to know her. Given the seriousness of the subject matter, and the horrendously bad decisions that have been made, only seeing things from Lou’s, unreliable, point of view means that heavy subjects are glossed over.

The most disappointing thing for me about Home Before Night is that I read it in paperback form, where almost a third of the book is a “sneak peek” at Pomare’s next novel. So, I was mentally unprepared for the novel ending where it did, as I was holding the heft of the remainder of the book in my hand. I was fully expecting more reveals and twists to come. Despite this, and some lack of depth in the novel, Home Before Night is a good atmospheric twisty thriller. 

Sally Diamond lives on the outskirts of the village of Carricksheedy, Ireland. Peter Geary is living in Rotorua, Aotearoa New Zealand. Sally is in her 40s, she has been living with her father since her mother died when Sally was eighteen. Her father has kept her quite isolated, due to her being “socially deficient”. Peter was 14 when he and his father arrived in Rotorua, his father keeps him isolated for his own good, telling Peter it was because of his rare health condition: “Dad obviously had a kind heart.”

Sally doesn’t like engaging with others, often feigning deafness during her brief trips into the village. It is only when her father dies that the extent of her disconnect with the world becomes apparent. Sally knew that her parents were not her real parents, but after her father’s death she, and the reader, learn of her unconscionable origins. She receives support as well as death threats – “Hell is where you belong” – from the community. The support comes mainly from those who themselves experience prejudice and bigotry.

We read of Peter as a child in Ireland, and his disturbing interactions with “the ghost” in the locked room next to the one he is often confined to. We read with horror the behaviours he picks up from his father – due to his isolation he has no other role models. When he fled Ireland with his father, Peter did start to wonder about his situation, and when in Rotorua he openly questions his father’s misogyny and racial prejudice. However, there is a fair amount of wilful ignorance about Peter, he only finds agency when he discovers just how deceived he has been.

It is hard to write a review of Strange Sally Diamond and not give away any of the ‘reveals’ of the plot – and that would be unforgivable as it is such a gripping experience to read the book without knowing anything about it. As you read, a complex story unfolds. A story of abuse spawning abuse, of men controlling women and children with physical abuse, mental abuse, and drugs, of the awful plight of young children and young women, of unimaginable cruelty. It is also the story of extraordinary patience and kindness.

As enthralling as the plot is, it is the characters that move the story. As you read, it is hard to tell who is attentive to Sally because they are kind and who because they are psychotic. Who is Mark who appears suddenly with an almost unhealthy interest in Sally’s past? And who sends her Toby the teddy bear? And why does she have such a strong reaction to the bear? The character of Sally Diamond is a brilliant creation, with her idiosyncrasies making her both endearing and downright terrifying.

The arc of Sally’s story reminds me of that of Charlie in Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon. As she progresses, she is funny: “Honestly, between therapy and yoga and learning to caress myself, I’ve enough on my plate.” She starts to flourish: “I liked the faint crinkly lines that came from the corners of my eyes when I smiled at myself. I was beautiful”. She starts to despair: “I finally had someone who was mine. I loved him, I wanted to protect him and keep him to myself. I couldn’t have known what he was capable of.”

Peter’s progression is in a minor key and raises questions about whether a person can be created solely by their experiences. Where do extremely bad, and exceptionally good, abilities come from? Peter is relatable but reprehensible. He is raised to think he is special, and he leans into his privilege while knowing right from wrong: “all three of them came out to play, both in my nightmares and in my waking hours … I could have saved them all.” He has that astonishing ability to assume what someone wants and be amazed when they are not grateful when he provides it, “‘I love you,’ I said as I locked the door behind me.”

There is a section in Strange Sally Diamond when the twists stop, when all is explained and when stories match up, almost – the reader knows when self-interest enters the re-telling of events. It is a puzzling time as you read this section, as though a time bomb is about to go off. There is comfort in thinking all the events are explainable, all originating from specific circumstances. And then the tragic tale picks up again, and the reader wonders once more if that is true – are the characters’ histories really a satisfactory explanation for their behaviour?

Strange Sally Diamond is a great disturbing read that haunts you long after you finish reading. It is sad and awful but also manages to be funny, and the author has some fun with a couple of the surnames in the text. There is a good sense of place in Ireland, London, and in Aotearoa New Zealand, and as the story spans many decades, there is a sense of time as well, with the Covid 19 pandemic featuring towards the end.

Part of the horror of Strange Sally Diamond comes from the duration of the various crimes. They are not crimes of passion; they are a way of life for the perpetrators: “The need for connection could never be satisfied by strangers”. The ending of the novel is exceptional, answering the question of nature versus nurture in a creepy way, by way of a piano and Toby the teddy bear!

When an atrocious murder of a pregnant woman is committed in Dunedin, Detective Sam Shephard’s boss wants her off the investigation – he doesn’t believe “because of your own advanced state of pregnancy, that you would be able to remain objective and emotionally detached from this case.” But Sam is not having a bar of it, it’s not that she can’t remain objective or detached, but because subjective and attached is how Sam does her best work.

Expectant deals with the most inhuman and the most human of crimes, those that involve babies. The book scans every case and scenario, from Minnie Dean in the 1800s, convicted of infanticide, through the various cases of new-born infants being stolen. They are taken from hospitals, cars, prams. Sometimes taken by desperate women who have lost children, or by those who can’t conceive or carry a baby to term. And then there are the darker motives, those taken for money, for exploitation, for medical purposes.

And the novel doesn’t shy away from Aotearoa / New Zealand having “some of the worst statistics in the world when it came to the domestic abuse of children”. Sam, who will give birth in just over three weeks, must confront these realities. But her condition, with the odd Braxton Hicks contraction, her frequent need of the loo, and the constant attacks of the munchies, spurs Sam on to find the culprit and their motive. Time is always of the essence in solving crimes, and Sam has her own deadline looming: “This week coming is my last one at work.”

Sam Shephard is one of my favourite crime-solving characters – she is outspoken, clumsy, off-side with many of her colleagues and most of her superiors, but she is caring and empathetic and doesn’t ignore her gut instincts. There are lovely moments in the book, such as when she is talking to the brave young man who, along with his tagging gang, found the dying woman – and who chose to stay with her as she died rather than scarpering with his mates. And when she sits with a young woman and her mother, the young woman having ended up being of interest to the police for doing something terrible, because she had been scared and feeling totally alone.

Sam is a fearless detective, and she is also funny – getting her baby bump wedged between stools and needing to be rescued (“Jesus, Sam, you’re a goon”), having a love/hate but mainly love relationship with her Mum, bantering with her best friend Maggie and partner Paul. Although Sam is a strong character, others are not completely eclipsed – even her unborn child demands attention, already displaying a temperament, much to the annoyance of Sam’s cat. One of the stars of Expectant is Dunedin. The spring flowers, the funky eateries, the oddly shaped streets, and the banks that even added all together couldn’t scrape up a million dollars in cash for a ransom. And the text is so familiar, with its use of Kiwi slang: “It wasn’t a ‘Dunner stunner’ day”, “the dungier the car the better”.

Sam’s respect for the victims and empathy with the perpetrators is compelling – she imagines the emptiness felt by the bereaved and those who have had people taken – the vacuums left by the loss of people, and by the loss of a feeling of safety. The neighbours who no longer know each other or care about each other, who might dob each other in if someone suddenly is seen with a baby, or who might do so in an act of petty revenge.

Contrasted with this lack of information about those near us are the dangers of social media, where it is easy to glean personal information about strangers, and the risk of official electronic records that can be manipulated and inappropriately accessed. Sam’s investment in the case given her pregnancy is a great device, not only on the emotional side, but the practical too – her knowing what it is to be a pregnant woman going through the health system. Sam might be a cipher in the health system, but she refuses to be one in the police system, and the reader feels her outrage when one of her bosses tells her off for contaminating a crime scene – when not to do so would have been an act of cruelty.

“This investigation was starting to feel like a juggling act in which, every few seconds, someone tossed in a new ball” – the plotting of Expectant is lively and intriguing. There is one of those lovely moments when you realise a possible outcome before the protagonist, and you must read about them moving into danger with no way to tell them! And in the final resolution, Sam must make the most amazing choice, a plot turn that would only work with a character as human and complex as Sam. Expectant can be read as a stand-alone, or first go back and read Overkill, The Ringmaster, Containment, and Bound – you won’t regret it!

Birnam Wood starts with mellifluous prose revealing the motivations, attitudes, and self-doubts of three characters who started the gardening co-op that gives the novel its name. Birnam Wood was Mira Bunting’s idea, using unused land to grow vegetables, sometimes without the owners’ permission – some of the produce being donated “to the needy”. Shelley Noakes has always been Mira’s 2IC, and she is getting a bit tired of it. Tony Gallo left the co-op soon after it started five years ago, and has now returned, just as changes are afoot. Changes that will significantly alter Birnam Wood, affect all the characters, and turn this literary novel into an eco-thriller.

An encounter between Mira and billionaire Robert Lemoine triggers these changes. They meet when Mira is scouting out private land adjacent to the alpine beech forest of Korowai National Park. An earthquake has blocked the main pass into the area, killing five people, and thwarting the landowner’s plans to subdivide. Mira is excited at the prospect of setting up an illicit operation there – after all, Owen Darvish, the landowner, was about to be knighted for his contributions to conservation, surely he couldn’t object if he found out – they were an eco-collective after all. But as she is leaving, she encounters Robert, and, like Macbeth on the blasted heath, the fates of all are changed.

Birnam Wood explores hypocrisy through all forms of human action, whether that be political, commercial, or environmental. The motives of businesses launching green programmes, those of young women entering into arrangements with older rich men, those of the ultra-rich who are planning bolt holes in remote locations, are all exposed through the storytelling. Robert is charming and generous, but surely one of the “Crypto-fascist dirty tricksters”? His technology is helping the critically endangered Fairy terns in Northland, but it is also being used for less benign purposes.

Mira is walking the thin line between compromise and sell-out. Owen wants to retire in peace with his knighthood, ignoring his wife Jill’s concerns about his new business arrangements – the land is his through marriage, Jill’s family has owned the land for generations. Tony sees through everyone’s deception but his own – he is on a mission to expose wrongdoing, while dreaming “he saw himself on stage, at a podium, collecting an award”, and when he stumbles onto something so much worse than he had imagined “I am going to be so fucking famous.” Robert has a way with IT, and not much concern with other people’s privacy, but his wealth can be used for so many good purposes …

The plotting of Birnam Wood is like dynamite with a long fuse – a slow burn leading to a massive explosion. The Shakespearean allusion of the title is carried throughout the novel, with guilt-ridden women, unexpected coincidences, choruses of doom, themes of deceit and fate, and a bloody denouement. It is set in 2017, pre-pandemic, pre- the catastrophic results of anthropogenic climate change occurring in Aotearoa as I write this review, and it feels the more prescient as a result. Even the name Lemoine resonated for me – it is the name of the IT engineer who was stood down from Google last year for claiming the chatbot he had helped develop had become sentient and was in need of protection.

Birnam Wood has no innocent characters, except perhaps the endangered Fairy terns in Northland, or the few remaining Orange-fronted parakeets who live in Korowai National Park. And readers are implicit in the crimes too, for being consumers, for being pragmatic, for writing book reviews while parts of the North Island are disaster zones, for using their cell phones. To understand the cell phone connection, read Birnam Wood – you’ll feel part of those who’d “known that he was bad from the start. And still they’d courted his business. Still they’d courted his approval, his respect. Still they’d courted him.” A tour de force literary eco-thriller!

Lorraine Henry is living in Masterton with a dicky hip and the memories she shared with her husband Frank, a cop who died through misadventure on the job. She works as a file clerk at the local police station, and she sneaks rent money to her niece, Sheena. Lorraine and Sheena’s mum were Pākehā sisters who married into Māori families. Lorraine took Sheena in when her parents died in an accident, and Sheena and her son Bradley are now Lorraine’s only family.

The community Lorraine lives in is not flash, and when peaceful “Some might call it peace, but that’s not it. It’s more like something lying in wait”. Ads for rental accommodation are for garage space, “ family of four max”. The Mongrel Mob is a clear presence, and Bradley’s dad, Keith, is a big man in the gang. Lorraine has struck up an unexpected friendship with a recently arrived neighbour, Patty. She and Patty often share a meal, a gin or three, and some telly of an evening.

The current worrying case at the station is a missing child, a young girl. And when a second child goes missing, this time a young boy, a detective comes over from Wellington to help the local cops investigate. Lorraine is being kept well away from the centre of the investigation, her colleagues seeing her as aligned with the ‘bad’ community. There’s also a suggestion she’s only kept her job through pity for what happened to Frank. But Detective Hayes from over the hill, “Dressed like a stork that’s fallen through a wardrobe”, soon realises the asset Lorraine is, with her knowledge of the local police files alongside her ties in the community.

When a third child goes missing, and all three of the kids’ families have either direct or indirect gang connections, the local cops jump to conclusions. And the ‘us-and-them’ shutters fall into place, hindering the investigation. Lorraine and Hayes start working together, trying to negotiate a way forward. Lorraine is used to such negotiations, as well as being seen as suspect by her colleagues, she is also viewed as an outsider by the community, due both to her being Pākehā and her working for the cops.

Lorraine hangs between two worlds; she compares Tangi she has experienced to the quick modest funeral organised for her sister; she automatically notices when Patty first enters her house without taking off her shoes. She knows Hayes is using her to get information from the community, just as Moko, one of Keith’s gang members, wants her to use her influence with the police: “You just keep them on track”.

Lorraine is intent on finding the kids. And she knows Keith and his boys want that too, despite what the local cops are saying. She hates the meth culture that accompanies Keith and his cohort, including Sheena – and she would prefer that Keith keep away. But she also knows Keith as a gifted gardener, just as Frank had been. And she knows how gentle he can be with Bradley. As things unroll, she is taken aback by the kindnesses shown to her by Moko.

Lorraine and Hayes manage to get some leads, and despite the local station trying to keep her away from the investigation, she persists and ends up in the most awful situations. Paper Cage is an extraordinarily tense read, there is a nail-biting sequence at the end of a long forestry track, and a similarly harrowing sequence on a remote farm: “Anyway, hell doesn’t have to be a big place, or hot. No reason it couldn’t be a shed out past Martinborough”.

The novel starts and ends in rain and the reader is totally immersed in the environment, and in the lives of the characters. The plotting is great, with the reader finding out crucial information ahead of Lorraine, adding a further layer of poignancy to her situation. And Lorraine, Aunty Lo, is the real heart of the novel. She is staunch despite all the unkindness around her. She has suffered great loss, yet still lives for others.

Lorraine’s efforts to find the kids are unswerving, kids with “the absolute halo of joy holding them, their glee not yet checked by rules and preferences and us-and-them eyes”. Somehow Lorraine manages to keep her world from spinning apart – the pressure she is under is brilliantly shown in an outburst in a supermarket carpark. And the resolution of the mystery is extraordinary, the reader being as gob-smacked as Lorraine, “Sometimes we know so little”. A great #YeahNoir novel.

Hotels are great thriller/mystery/horror settings – lots of corridors with lots of rooms, lots of creaky staircases, lots of people passing through over many years leaving stories and ghosts, and lots of places to hide bodies! In Her Blood uses this to great effect. Jac Morgan ends up staying at the Gilmore Hotel in Everly, a small town near the Waitomo Caves. She has reluctantly returned to her hometown in response to a text from her father saying her sister, Charlie, is missing and that no-one seems to care.

Jac runs into Iris Gilmore when fleeing the town campground, her arrival there coinciding with the discovery of a body in the river. The Gilmore has not been a working hotel since it was used as a hospital for servicemen during and immediately after World War Two, but Iris commandeers Jac into helping clean it for the annual Gilmore Hotel Open Day. At the hotel, Jac discovers that her sister isn’t the only young woman to have disappeared in Everly.

Twenty years ago, the Gilmore Hotel was home to sisters Paige and Lisa, both musicians with promise, but each receiving quite different treatment from their mother, Iris. Iris was a domineering woman with long-held sorrow – and a fixation with room 12A. When Jac meets her, Iris is still domineering, but starting to lose her grip, and living half in a fantasy world regarding her long-disappeared daughter, Paige. Her remaining daughter, Lisa, has recently come home to care for her mother.

Jac spends more time in the hotel than she would like, busy with her cleaning work, but she is still determined to investigate Charlie’s disappearance. She is not welcomed back to Everly, as she left under deep suspicion. The local cop is not eager to put any effort into finding Charlie. Charlie had been living with her drunkard aggressive father in a caravan at the campground, and she was cursed with “a surname that was synonymous with tragedy and gossip”, there is evidence that she might have just had enough of Everly and left – but Jac isn’t convinced.

When Paige disappeared from the Gilmore Hotel twenty years ago, there was evidence then that she too might have left of her own free will. But the police investigated Paige’s case thoroughly, and the townsfolk helped with the search, including Nathan, a young gardener at the hotel. Nathan is still working at the hotel twenty years later, and he has a close bond with Iris. Despite the lack of official interest in Charlie’s case, Jac finds clues and suspects galore for who might have abducted Charlie. The story is told from the points of view of Jac, Charlie and Lisa, and is set in the present and twenty years ago – allowing the reader to solve the mystery multiple times, and still be wondering who the culprit is!

In Her Blood makes the most of the gothic elements of an old and crumbling hotel, which has long been the source of ghost stories for the local children – many scenes are candle-lit, or dimly lit, people are often seen emerging from shadows, strange sounds are heard behind walls, people are locked in dark rooms. The plotting is an emerging reveal, with tension added by the up-coming Open Day – as the anniversary of Paige’s disappearance, it is an obvious impending denouement. All the main protagonists are damaged in some way, holding grudges, being terrified of fire, being overly possessive, or desperate for affection or approval. Jac reflects on her own history and her waste-of-space father, and she worries “Like father, like daughter”.

The depiction of abduction is dark and creepy – having to wear someone else’s clothes and underwear, emerging from a stupor to find your ears have been pierced. There is appalling treatment of children through the novel, by parents dealing with their own demons. And there are the intense bonds between siblings, the bitterness when one decides to leave the other, the guilt of the one who manages to get away.

Each of the main characters punches through their demons, the woman terrified of fire sees it as her escape, the one who throws her all at mollifying her continuous threat ends up turning into that threat, and the woman who starts thinking the world is full of people who have seriously lost their way, realises she is the only one who can find “their way out, a new beginning”. In Her Blood is intriguing, horrific, creepy, and a gripping read – as skeletons, literally and figuratively, gradually emerge from the crumbling hotel. Another excellent piece of #YeahNoir.

Set on a remote Central Otago sheep station, The Axeman’s Carnival is a dark tale of violence and cruelty. The story unfolds in a menacing way – with the reader knowing bad things are coming and wishing they could get the potential victims out of danger. You know the version of the story you are reading is the true one – there is a totally reliable narrator, a magpie called Tama.

Tama, short for Tamagotchi, falls out of his nest as a young fledgling. Marnie picks him up and takes him home, much to the annoyance of her husband Rob. Marnie makes a home for Tama, who proves to have a facility for languages. And the stage is set. Set for a story not just about the casual cruelty of routine farming practices, pest control, and keeping wild animals as pets – but the appalling blokeish expectations of the rural male. “The power of these men! You wouldn’t want to get on their bad side, that’s for sure.”

Rob, a champion axeman, is anxious about the upcoming annual competition, and is struggling with the sheep station during drought and at a time of plummeting demand. Their house is disintegrating, and their marriage endangered by Rob’s irrational jealousy – and not just of Tama, of any guy around – his love is one of ownership. “All our debt – sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe”, Rob blames his situation on anyone but himself, and he’s not one to take advice. Advice is readily available from Marnie’s sister Ange and her husband Nick, who run a successful cherry operation on the next property.

Ange and Nick also see the marketing potential in Tama – which finally gets Rob’s attention. Tama is doubtful when told, but an online marketing expert flies down from Auckland, and Whammo! “Everywhere. All over the world. I’m a meme, I’m a gif. I’m trending. I’m an influencer” – enter the nasty violence that grows in online communities, and those whose animals-rights ideologies drive them to action – often creating the very hurt they intend to liberate animals from.

The plotting of The Axeman’s Carnival leads to a startling climax, prefigured in the text: “So, I suppose that everything that happened afterwards was my fault”; “Perhaps I should have questioned it. I don’t suppose it matters now.” Like Tama, who dreams of living alone with Marnie, the reader wants the best for her. She is struggling with having had a miscarriage, and is fiercely loyal to Rob, which is sinister behaviour that no one around Marnie sees through. You find out what has happened to Marnie, and you get glimpses of her in happier times, when she chats with Ange or they practice their musical piece for the carnival.

Tama is surrounded by voices, those around him, those on the television, those of dead relatives, and those still alive. He is torn between his love for Marnie and the comforts of her home, and his own family and being free to be a magpie. His comments are constant, random, inappropriate, usually apposite, and very funny. His knowledge of the world outside of the farm is gleaned from the lurid cop shows Rob likes, and when flying over the local town he is puzzled not to see “traffic backed up all the way to Sunset”.

The Axeman’s Carnival is disturbing, but despite it’s dark and serious themes, it is funny and engaging. You really care about what is happening, or rather what is going to happen, which makes it a gripping read. Quite genius really.