Author Archives: alysonebaker

Better the Blood by Michael Bennett – 2022

Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman is an artist, a mother, a gardener, and “the finest police officer”. She is dedicated and focussed and used to pressure. But when she is singled out by the perpetrator of what turns into a … Continue reading

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Winter Time by Laurence Fearnley – 2022

Laurence Fearnley transports us to places with her writing, whether it be the rocky coast (Reach 2014), wetlands (The Quiet Spectacular 2016), or, in the case of Winter Time, the Mackenzie Basin, in the centre of the South Island. Her … Continue reading

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Back Home in Derry by David McGill – 2022

Dan Delaney’s first adventure was as a young cop placed on assignment on Somes Island in 1935 (The death ray debacle, 2015). Since then, we have read of him in incidents every decade. In Back home in Derry, it is … Continue reading

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Poor People With Money by Dominic Hoey – 2022

Monday Wooldridge is talking to her little brother, Eddy, who disappeared and never returned 15 years ago. She tells him about her life since he left. Their father decided to depart, their mother sort of did too. Monday became a … Continue reading

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Miracle by Jennifer Lane – 2022

Miracle Jamieson is negotiating being a teenager in small town Boorunga. She worries about her freckles, pines after her first love, Oli, and puts up with the school bullies. She obeys her cohort’s random rules: “For Year 9 girls, eating … Continue reading

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The Slow Roll by Simon Lendrum – 2022

Roy O’Malley is a professional Auckland gambler, with a weakness for a sob-story. When a distraught father asks him to find his missing 15-year-old daughter, Sefina, O’Malley agrees. The case gets a little more complicated than O’Malley first thought, and … Continue reading

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Boy Fallen by Chris Gill – 2022

Brooke Palmer flies down from Auckland to visit her West Coast hometown, Taonga. Far from the ‘treasure’ suggested by the name, Taonga holds bitter memories for Brooke – it is where her 15-year-old brother, Jack, was murdered 19 years before. … Continue reading

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Down from Upland by Murdoch Stephens – 2022

Jacqui and Scott live with their son Axle down from Upland Rd, Kelburn, Wellington. They are both civil servants, she in Police Headquarters, he across the road in the Ministry of Health. Axle has moved from single-sex Wellington College due … Continue reading

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Notorious by Olivia Hayfield – 2022

Should Emma Snow persist with Rowan Bosworth, a dark and troubled Heathcliff, living a reclusive life on the Yorkshire moors? Or should she stay with Henry Theodore, a clean-cut Bingley, “a fully signed up member of the rich and powerful”. … Continue reading

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Waking the Tiger by Mark Wightman – 2021

Set in hot and humid Singapore in the 1930s, Waking the tiger is a murder mystery that stalks around the colonialism and rising fascism of the era, and it also introduces a great new fictional detective: Inspector Maximo Betancourt. Betancourt … Continue reading

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