Review by Booklist Review
Eighteen years ago, the Auckland police force placed Māori officers on the front lines of the violent removal of Māori protesters attempting to reoccupy their sacred mountain. Now Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman faces her own culpability and the greater legacy of that day as a killer seeks retribution disguised as an act of "utu," a Māori tradition involving the restoration of balance. A video from an anonymous email address leads Hana to a body posed with a daguerreotype of English soldiers celebrating a Māori chief's murder. The victim turns out to be the descendant of one of the pictured soldiers, and Hana realizes she's racing a serial killer to identify the soldiers' bloodlines. Wielding uncanny investigative instinct, Hana identifies Māori rights law professor Poata Raki as the killer. Unfortunately, Hana's efforts to stop Raki are complicated by trumped-up allegations of excessive violence, her teenage daughter's rebellion, and the contradictions inherent in being a Māori cop. Bennett unflinchingly weaves together layers of fallout from New Zealand's bloody colonization, enduring Māori culture, and gripping procedural details. Hopefully this compelling debut heralds the start of a long-running series.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bennett (In Dark Places: The Confessions of Teina Pora and an Ex-Cop's Fight for Justice) makes his fiction debut with a stellar series launch set in contemporary New Zealand that explores the devastating belated consequences of a horrific murder of a Maori chief by six British soldiers in 1863--an act preserved in a daguerreotype. The opening pages reveal the original crime, and it soon becomes apparent that a killer is enacting vengeance on the six soldiers' descendants. As the body count mounts, Bennett dramatically portrays the psychological fallout of age-old violence upon Auckland police detective Hana Westerman and a range of well-drawn secondary characters; and he convincingly reveals Hana's inner turmoil and the conflicts inherent among her roles of detective, Maori woman, ex-wife to the senior police officer, and mother to a talented, outspoken teen activist. Told in third person mainly from Hana's perspective but also from the perspectives of her daughter, the killer, and the victims, the narrative moves at a quick pace. Immersed in modern-day technologies and with a keen sensitivity to cultural issues, this is a finely crafted page-turner. Bennett is a writer to watch. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Māori screenwriter and director Bennett took the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Award for best nonfiction with In Dark Places. As grounded in reality as his true-crime writing, this debut mystery employs complex characters and unsparing facts to explore the marginalized experiences of Indigenous peoples in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Because of her Māori heritage and her role 18 years earlier in brutally "pacifying" Māori protesters, detective Hana Westerman attracts unwanted attention from a serial murderer whose victims share one trait: they are direct descendants of six British colonists immortalized in daguerreotype beside the hanging body of a rangatira, a chief of great stature. Listeners will likely appreciate hearing te reo Māori vocabulary pronounced flawlessly by narrators Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are, both experienced Māori actors. Narrating Hana's investigation, McDowell creates a sympathetic detective struggling to balance her identities, including being a mother to a rebellious teenage daughter who is adamantly anti-cop. Poata James Raki, an academic turned killer, receives an equally insightful treatment from Te Are in his resonant supporting narration of Raki's motives and actions. VERDICT This planned series-starter excels in audio, as the emotive and authentically accented narrators create an unmatched sense of place and character.--Lauren Kage
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Hana Westerman, an Auckland cop with Māori roots, goes up against an Indigenous serial killer looking to avenge England's brutal oppression of New Zealand's native people 160 years ago. "Better the blood of the innocent than none at all," says the killer, for whom the horrors of the past are kept alive by the daguerreotype of six British soldiers celebrating with the corpse of a tribal chief hanging behind them. His plan is to kill six people with ties to the original offenders. The case awakens Hana's deep guilt over roughly policing fellow Māori during a land rights protest 18 years ago, in particular a silver-haired woman Hana later learns is the mother of the serial killer, Poata James Raki, a distinguished legal professor suspended for his increasingly radical views. Jaye Hamilton, Hana's ex-husband and superior on the force, assures her she was just doing her job at the protest, but their 17-year-old daughter, Addison, an activist pop singer who was one of Raki's most admiring students, is appalled her mother did such a thing. It's a falling-out the killer is all too happy to exploit. However heinous his actions, Raki is in full, articulate command of the truth regarding the past and present--and Hana knows it. Making his fiction debut, Māori screenwriter and director Bennett establishes himself as an excellent storyteller. As well executed as the murder story is (an unneeded subplot aside), the book's immersion in tribal culture and history makes the greatest impact, lending complexity and sweep to the narrative. Bennett's use of Indigenous terms and names (while providing a running glossary) adds to the novel's resonance. One can only hope this is the beginning of a series. A striking debut and a significant addition to Indigenous literature. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
