Reviewed by Alyson Baker
The body of sixteen-year-old Jasmine Dunn is washed up on a Te Atatu beach. The next day, her mother's body is found near Bethels. Tova Tan lives downstairs from the Dunns and was seen arguing with Jasmine. Known to the police, Tova becomes their main suspect. When Tova's half-brother is also implicated, her loyalty to him drags her deep into his seedy lifestyle. The police suspect Tova knows more than she's telling although an unlikely ally appears in Constable Finn McIntosh who is less inclined than his colleagues to jump to conclusions. Searching her parents' past for a truth that could save her family, Tova finds herself caught in a dangerous and illicit world where she will have to fight for her very survival.
Tova Tan is part Māori and part Chinese, “I feel caught between Mum’s whānau, who I don’t know, and Dad’s world where I don’t belong”. This cultural mix makes life tricky for Tova in Aotearoa – where racism is alive and well. When her landlady and her landlady’s daughter are found murdered, Tova falls under suspicion. But, unbeknownst to her, she has someone on her side. Constable Finn McIntosh has his own reasons to be a bit cautious in trusting his police colleagues, and he tends to get a bit goofy around Tova.
Two kids find the first body, the daughter Jasmine Dunn, by a sea wall near some mangroves. KK is a bullied kid from a caring home, Jacob is from an abusive home and insists that KK keeps his mouth shut – but KK can’t help but alert a passer-by on the way home. Tova comes back from a six-week teacher placement in Tauranga to find that someone has been using her flat, and that the Dunn’s house upstairs is open, empty, and been spotlessly cleaned. She eventually calls the police.
Detective Pavletich from Henderson police has already put together a team, including Finn, to investigate the girl’s death, and on the first day of investigations her mother’s body is found in sand dunes at O’Neill Bay. Finn knows Tova from a case back in Counties Manukau - investigating the death of her mother, well known actor Areta Amahua. Tova was convinced her mother’s death wasn’t a suicide, and got the reputation of being unreasonable. Finn, who didn’t think the case was being investigated properly, moved 'out west' to Henderson. Until Tova appears as a person of interest in the Dunn murders, Finn had been keeping a low profile.
There are reasons apart from the prejudice of the previous case that Tova becomes a person of interest: she doesn’t disclose she had an argument with Jasmine before leaving for Tauranga, her BMW has been seen in the neighbourhood near where Jasmine's body was found, and Tova models part time to make money to fund her teacher training - when it turns out Juliette Dunn in fact ran several brothels, it seems a small step to conclude with no evidence that Tova was probably one of Mrs Dunn’s girls.
CAUGHT BETWEEN is complex, with Tova trying to work out what is going on as well as the police. Through it all she just keeps going, one step at a time, protecting the innocent, trying to find out who the bad guys are. Meanwhile Finn is doing the same, partnered with colleagues who are all too human, one reacting badly to danger, one desperately wanting to fall pregnant, one possibly addicted to gambling. And Finn is wonderfully fragile too, staggering on through attacks and injuries.
The novel is viscerally written, you can smell the environment, feel the injuries. It moves along nicely as a great complex puzzle and then it turns into a nail-biting hostage thriller. Throughout it all are the questions – who is innocent, who are the bad guys, and why are they doing bad things? And there is the juxtaposition of those burdened by expectation and those burdened by having no one expecting anything of them, the divide between wealth and the privilege and difficulties it brings, and the often-insurmountable challenges that come with deprivation.
Tova’s finding out what really happened to her mother reveals yet more complications for her, and she finds more and more she wants to trust Finn. The romance angle is delicately woven through the narrative, adding texture but in no way holding up the action. The story unfolds through the points of view of Tova and Finn, nicely bracketed by that of KK. KK and Jacob’s stories background the novel, with them doing the right thing against appalling odds. A really great read.
Alyson Baker is a crime-loving librarian in Nelson. A longer version of this review first appeared on her blog, which you can check out here.
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