Review: CUT & RUN by Alix Bosco

CUT & RUN
by Alix Bosco (Penguin, 2009)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

The thriller-writing debut from a “successful writer in other media” writing under a pseudonym, Cut & Run introduces Auckland based-heroine and legal researcher Anna Markunas, who will apparently spearhead a planned series.

Middle-aged Markunas has been easing herself back into work, and equilibrium, after recovering from a breakdown suffered after years of will-sapping social work in South Auckland, the suicide of her husband, and the problems of her P-addicted son. Now a legal researcher for a defense lawyer friend, she finds herself looking into the circumstances of a celebrity murder.

When rugby star Alex Solona, who began life on the tough streets of South Auckland, is murdered in the arms of beautiful socialite Mikky St Claire, it seems an open-and-shut case of a drug deal gone wrong. A view bolstered by Solona’s former friend and rugby teammate Kamal Fifita confessing to the crime. But as Markunas begins to research Fifita and Solona’s backgrounds, she begins to suspect something far more sinister.

Overall, Cut & Run is a very enjoyable thriller that sucks you in and keeps you turning the pages. Bosco sets the scene by name-dropping a lot of real-life central Auckland locations and historic urban footnotes in the early going, before also taking the story to South Auckland and the Coromandel. There’s also a sense that some of the high-profile characters, including celebrities and QCs, may be amalgams of real-life New Zealanders, which can create a fun game of ‘I wonder who that is based on?’

But the bigger question is, ‘does it work as a thriller?’ And the answer to that is a resounding yes; Bosco creates an enjoyable page-turner not only through the ‘did Fifita really do it?’ plotline hook, kicked up a notch when subsequent discoveries put Markunas in danger, but through her creation of characters with some nice depth and complexity.

The more we learn about Markunas, the more we want to follow her (in this book and the ongoing series). The supporting cast could read like a caricature list: lawyers (honorable and not), cynical restaurant reviewers, violent gang members, jaded policeman, troubled youngsters, airhead socialites, but Bosco imbues them all with something more. She does a great job setting us up and then upturning our assumptions about not only the plot, but some of the characters. I look forward to the second in the series.

This review was first published in the print edition of NZLawyer magazine (issue 122, 2 October 2009).