BETTER THE BLOOD

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.