"A slick read with plenty of substance" - review of 17 YEARS LATER

17 YEARS LATER by JP Pomare (Hachette, Aug 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

The violent slaughter of the wealthy Primrose family while they slept shocked the nation of New Zealand and scarred the small idyllic rural town of Cambridge forever.

All of the evidence pointed to their young live-in chef, Bill Ruatara, who was swiftly charged with murder and brought to justice. The brutal crime is now infamous, and Bill a figure of contempt who deserves to rot in jail for life.

Seventeen years later, prison psychologist TK Phillips is fighting for an appeal. He is convinced Bill did not receive a fair trial. When celebrity true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott takes a sudden interest, it's not long before she uncovers new evidence that could set fire to the prosecution's case.

As TK and Sloane dig deeper into the past, they become tangled in a complex web of danger and deceit. With Bill's innocence far from assured and their own lives at stake, will they risk everything to unearth the truth, or leave it buried for good?

“For Melbourne-based indigenous storyteller JP Pomare (Ngā Puhi) is one of the most exciting voices to emerge from the ‘antipodean noir’ crime wave in recent years, crafting a string of intriguing standalone thrillers that combine page-whirring narratives with nuanced characters and the kind of elevated writing you can point to in defence of genre whenever the tired old ‘literary fiction vs popular fiction’ arguments and misperceptions start rearing their ugly hear once more.

In 17 Years Later, prison psychologist Te Kuru (TK) Phillips once believed that young Māori chef Bill Kareama, convicted of the slaughter of wealthy English immigrants the Primrose family in their stately home outside the small town of Cambridge, New Zealand, had been wrongfully convicted.

Bill was a defendant who’d become a pariah, found guilty of horrendous violence that ‘shocked the nation’, only for questions to later creep in. Was the prosecution as solid as it seemed? Had the justice system delivered injustice? For years TK was a fierce campaigner for Bill, noting gaps in the prosecution case and leaps made by the jury in the rush to hold someone responsible for the slaughter of the Primrose family, that he hoped may lead to a successful appeal, or retrial.

Then, TK walked away. Why?

Australian true crime podcaster Sloane Abbott is riding high and hungover after her investigations into domestic violence earned her a major award, upstaging traditional media. When her assistant Tara suggests looking into Bill’s case, Sloane is intrigued by the fact Bill has spent 17 years in prison, never acknowledging his guilt, even though he likely would have been paroled by now if he had. She initially declines to look into it, until a grain of truth among her regular dose of online hate makes Sloane realise her career’s been built on victims her audience – ‘female, white, twenty to fifty’ – most identify with. So she decides to swerve into something new: race, class, and a potentially innocent indigenous man. Except Bill, the family’s live-in chef, has never talked to any journalists.

Sloane is going to need TK’s help.

Pomare unfurls his tale through multiple timeframes and tripartite narratives – Sloane, Bill, and TK – luring readers in with many questions and keeping the tension high throughout. Why did TK walk away from the case? Did Bill really do it, or was he railroaded by a biased system? Is Sloane interested in truth and justice, or just a good story to engage her listeners and pump up her profile?

17 Years Later is a slick read with plenty of substance, where the truth is slippery; a fast-flowing tale that never feels ‘thin’. Pomare, who won a Ngaio Marsh Award for his outstanding debut Call Me Evie, and has seen later thrillers become #1 Audible bestsellers, shortlisted for awards, and adapted for the screen (Disney+ series The Clearing), has a great touch for character and tension. In 2021, Pomare spoke with Māori and Pasifika online magazine E-Tangata about crime fiction being a perfect vehicle for social commentary, and 17 Years Later is further evidence.

It’s a page-whirring thriller that goes beyond its central hook of ‘did Bill do it’ – is he the victim of a miscarriage of justice or a manipulative killer? – to explore societal biases, flaws or blind-spots in our criminal justice system, and the ethics of true crime podcasting.

A stay-up-all-night read with plenty to say..

[This review was first written for Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.