Review: THE MIRES

THE DEEPER THE DEAD by Catherine Lea (Bateman Books, 2025)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old tearaway Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child, who always picks up on things that aren't hers to worry about. They live next door to Janet, a white woman with an opinion about everything, and new arrival Sera, whose family are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe.

 

When Janet’s son Conor arrives home without warning, sporting a fresh buzzcut and a new tattoo, the quiet tension between the neighbours grows, but no one suspects just how extreme Conor has become. No one except Wairere, who can feel the danger in their midst, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.

Hopefully more and more of us are looking for answers to the state of the world in the right directions, but then again you look at the state of world politics and the rise of the nationalistic mobs, environmental degradation and climate change denial, and it's getting hard to see any light at the end of an increasingly long, dark tunnel. Tina Makereti has chosen to take this situation, and the hopelessness generated hyper-local, with THE MIRES. Into a small community, living on top of a swamp in Kapiti, on the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand which is trying to coexist, and it's in their interactions and responses to threats that we have been given the opportunity to learn something,

The story is centred around three women - all from different countries and different decades, all of whom with children and life experience that vary dramatically. First up is Keri, a Māori woman who lives with the aftermath of domestic violence, struggling to feed her two children - a lively four year old called Walty and her reserved teenage daughter Wairere, who hears the voices of her ancestors and has the gift of sight.

She lives between, on the one side, refugees from ecological breakdown in Europe - Sera, her husband Adam and baby Aliana. On the other Janet, another survivor of domestic violence, she's a white New Zealander woman with very fixed ideas about how everybody else should live. Meanwhile her son, Conor, is becoming increasing radicalised, behaving very secretly and strangely.

These three women - Keri, Sera and Janet - form the core of this novel, but it's Conor who becomes the catalyst, returning home without warning, sporting tattoos and a buzzcut, his behaviour really causing the tension to ramp up. Whilst the older women may not immediately realise just how warped Conor's beliefs have become, Wairere immediately senses the danger.

As with the outstanding and very moving KATARAINA, central to the core of the Māori people is their connection to vital areas of the landscape - in this case, again, a swamp that forms both part of the community and their sensibility for want of a better description. The novel starts out quite deceptively, with the feel of a gentle, domestic styled story about women, families and living in small communities or suburbs. As friendships are formed, and the younger children in particular form initial bridges between them, the novel itself starts to build through the gathering of strangers and the perceived threat of difference to a very particular threat within. Conor and his extremist right-wing connections, isolation, and targeting of women and migrants in particular becomes something that could break this small, almost insulated world apart.

Informed strongly by indigenous sensibilities, beliefs and spiritual connections to Country, and ancestors, THE MIRES also isn't afraid to use the examples of the horror of white supremacy, the massacres that are all too often performed in its name, and attempt to shine a light on that darkest of human behaviour whilst more importantly, providing examples of how the best of humanity can rise above. 

Whilst parts of THE MIRES were devastating, and very discomforting to read, it's message of hope and connection shone through. It has a particularly indigenous sensibility - the things that matter - people / community / connection to those and to place, always to place, feels very much like an answer we could all be looking towards. .

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a regular judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by New Zealanders adn Australians on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

Review: 17 YEARS LATER

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

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

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?

JP Pomare is one of those authors that always, always delivers a slightly different bent on the question 'What on Earth is Happening Here?'. From the confusion in the reader and character's minds in CALL ME EVIE, to the preconception twisting that's going on in THE WRONG WOMAN and the masterclass in misdirection that was HOME BEFORE NIGHT he's now added the combination of hindsight, expertise and podcasting and reworded the question slightly to "What on Earth Happened Then?" in 17 YEARS LATER.

The story is, on the face of it, a pretty straightforward one. The violent slaughter of a wealthy family when they slept, lead to the identification and lazy investigation of young live-in chef, Bill Ruatara, who was swiftly charged, and then convicted of murder. Seventeen years later, TK Phillips, a prison psychologist has now thrown a lot of his own life under a bus trying to get an appeal underway, before he walked away from Bill and his case. Then celebrity true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott is guilted into taking an interest in a 'non-white' crime, dragging TK with her, leading to the rapid, almost too easy discovery of new evidence and a potential legal binfire.

Which needless to say leads to more digging, and some extremely unhappy onlookers, with the threat to both Philips and Abbott starting to become very immediate, and an intricate web of small town connections that looks like it might be hard to break open.

Told in varying timelines and viewpoints, 17 YEARS LATER allows Bill Ruatara to have a voice in his own case - something that seemed to have been mostly ignored in the investigation. His viewpoint, and timeline, is all about the events that led up to the murder of the wealthy, English family, which gives the author a chance to reveal a lot about their background, and some dodgy dealings that have gone on before the family arrived in New Zealand. It also provides an insight into the life of a young man, a would be chef, from a poor background who tried to find a way to do the right thing by the girl he loved and ended up in more trouble than you'd think would be possible. The current day investigation takes you more inside the head and eyes of podcaster Abbott in some ways, as she actively pursues leads and tries to understand the time and the place that the murders happened in. Phillips provides historical context in that he's been on Ruatara's side for many years, as well as a conduit between Sloane and the man in prison, as well as expertise on human behaviours. And motivations. 

There's a lot under the surface of this small town that doesn't like being stirred up by Abbott and Phillips, anymore than it liked what happened all those years ago. Rapidly paced, there's nothing transparent or easy about what could be seen as a pretty straightforward botched investigation, as more and more "what the" moments are revealed along the way. Racial and class bias, flaws, laziness, blindspots, and just plain old screwups are all explored, as are the ethics and motivations of true crime podcasters. Because it's a Pomare novel, at the end of it all, nothing is left behind in the dark.now.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"An exquisite thriller and hell of a ride" - review of KING OF ASHES

KING OF ASHES by SA Cosby (Flatiron Books, June 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together.

Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

What more can we say about Virginia author SA Cosby: a superlative storyteller who ‘broke through’ during COVID after a long apprenticeship working on his craft, and who’s brought a welcome blue collar African American perspective to rural noir alongside a great touch for character and action?

With superb novels like Blacktop Wasteland, Razorblade Tears, and All the Sinners Bleed he has catapulted himself in a few short years to the highest echelons of top-quality crime writing, along with New York Times bestseller status and shelves creaking under the weight of many awards.

Cosby writes terrific stories, and terrific sentences, and that’s on show once more in his latest novel King of Ashes, a thrilling and dark take on a twisted American Dream cum Shakespearean tragedy.

Roman Carruthers is living the high life in Atlanta, a financial advisor to the stars, when he’s called back to his hometown by his sister Neveah when their father ends up in a coma following a hit-and-run incident. Maybe not an accident, given their younger brother Dante’s deep debts to some very, very dangerous local gangsters. The Carruthers family was built on fire; their parents began their own crematorium business, only for their mother to vanish following an affair. Many in the town, believe their father put her body into the flames. Some in their family, too.

Trying to hold together the family that he’d left behind, Roman quickly finds his brains and charm may not grant him easy passage with the ultra-violent gangsters who’ve infected Jefferson Run.

But can he buy his way out of trouble with his financial wizardry? He and Dante fall into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse that pushes them to the darkest parts of their personalities, while Neveah is determined to uncover the truth behind their mother’s disappearance; can the siblings survive?

In King of Ashes, Cosby crafts an exquisite thriller; the pages whir by on superb prose. Guilt, sacrifice, and family secrets collide. Everything burns, Roman’s father used to say, but will he have to cast his own soul into the fire to save his family? 

Building to a cataclysmic finale, Cosby once again propels readers on one hell of a ride. 

Excellent. Highly recommended for crime/thriller readers who can handle a bit of the darker stuff.

[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.

Review: FOX SPIRIT ON A DISTANT CLOUD

FOX SPIRIT ON A DISTANT CLOUD by Lee Murray (The Cuba Press, 2024)

Reviewed by Alyson Baker

Wellington, 1923, and a sixty-year-old woman hangs herself in a scullery; ten years later another woman ‘falls’ from the second floor of a Taranaki tobacconist; soon afterwards a young mother in Taumarunui slices the throat of her newborn with a cleaver.

All are women of the Chinese diaspora, who came to Aotearoa for a new life and suffered isolation and prejudice in silence. Chinese Pākehā writer Lee Murray has taken the nine-tailed fox spirit húli jīng as her narrator to inhabit the skulls of these women and others like them and tell their stories.

Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud is an audacious blend of biography, mythology, horror and poetry that transcends genre to illuminate lives in the shadowlands of our history.. 

“You will give these women voice and nourish them with hope … You will give them flesh and make them real” – Lee Murray, a “New Zealand-born Chinese Pākehā”, tells nine tales of women of the Chinese diaspora, women who were either the victims of and/or perpetrators of unconscionable crimes in Aotearoa. How did these atrocities occur (and they did occur), and how did stifled women get the spirit to act?

Murray frames her stories as tales of the morally ambivalent húli jīng, a nine-tailed fox. But a húli jīng out of her milieu. Not travelling from China to Korea, where she would have switched into a gumiho, or to Japan where she would have morphed into a kitsune. The narrating Fox finds herself awaking in Aotearoa, a land where no embodied fox has ever set paw – “turning your hazel fox-eyes instead to the bright wax-eye that is flit-flit-flitting from flax to fern, to the sturdy black wētā trudging up the trunk of a nearby ponga tree … you curl your claws in the softening detritus.”

Out of her environment, the Fox, like the girls and women in the tales, is unable to enjoy the beauty of her new world – she is from a different culture, speaks a different language, she “becomes a lonely spectator of life”. She cannot run free, she is confined to the lives of the nine women. This is because she longs to travel to heaven, and “she cannot know her true place without first experiencing the agony of living. It is the eternal contract”. There is only one way: “Nine tails. Nine tales. Nine mortal lives.” And what tragic lives they are.

“Whose skull will you wear?” The tales are of women from different times and at all stages of life, from baby, to girl, to young woman, to adult, to elderly. All the women are confined and lacking agency. As well as their spirits being the húli jīng, Murray also terms the women penjing, which became bunjae in Korea, and usually known as the Japanese bonsai – wild things dwarfed and shaped by humans.

The women are all seen as of value only for their capability to procreate or carry out menial tasks. Education, aspiration, potential, all having no place in their lives, or if they do, they are quashed as the women mature. And this cycle of extinguished hope flows through the generations. The Fox is always there as a silent witness, apart from when she bushes her tail “beneath stiff cotton”, or gnashes her “tiny sharp teeth in distaste”, when “for an instant, you become your true self. You lift your head, and flick your ears”.

FOX SPIRIT ON A DISTANT CLOUD talks of the burden of a culture when it can’t be embraced, when it traps you rather than empowers you. In this “New Gold Mountain” you are only seen as: “An almond-eyed difficulty.” Any flicker of personal life is taken, as are any children you bear: “It is the way things are, the way things are destined to be.” You have no property, and if you do manage financial independence, you are always aware of shadows in the dark: “They exist everywhere. Not a woman, since women understand the rules, and any woman who has a problem with you would approach you in the daylight … Only men skulk in the shadows.”

The tales are all sad and bleak, they wear down the women and drive the Fox to explosive rage: “All these years your fox-bones squeezed into places they didn’t belong.” These are not tales of women who are ciphers for all Chinese women. One is, like Murray, “one-part willow and one-part manuka”. They are tales of those who became snippets in Papers Past, or whose stories appeared in the national media. They are tales of women whose spirit has waned: “The gods were right all along. You are a no-good woman and a waste of rice.”

The book is beautifully constructed, prefaced by poetry, and contrasting the tales are the smatterings of short couplets they include: “tuatara / steps on a rock”, “frost on the grass / late for work”, “lifting a rock / the slaters scatter.” The Fox, after: “All these years imprisoned in a domed skull cage. Surrounded by ghosts”, comes to a revelation that her difficult journey to heaven, her life in this far off lonely alien land, has been all about bearing witness – just like Murray’s novel. 

I found FOX SPIRIT ON A DISTANT CLOUD wonderfully conceived and executed.

Alyson Baker is a crime-loving former librarian in Nelson. This review first appeared on her blog, which you can check out here. 

Guest Review: RETURN TO BLOOD by Michael Bennett

RETURN TO BLOOD by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster, Jan 2025 paperback)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

After the perils of a case that landed much too close to home, Hana Westerman turned in her badge and abandoned her career as a detective in the Auckland CIB. Hoping that civilian life will offer her the opportunity to rest and recalibrate, she returns to her hometown of Tātā Bay, where she moves back in with her beloved father, Eru. Yet the memories of the past are everywhere, and as she goes for her daily run on the beach, Hana passes a local monument to Grace, a high school classmate who was murdered more than twenty years ago and hidden in the dunes overlooking the sea. A Māori man with a previous record was convicted of the crime, although Eru never believed he was guilty.

When her daughter finds another young woman’s skeleton in the sands, Hana soon finds herself awkwardly involved. Investigators suspect that this is Kiri Thomas, a young Māori woman who disappeared four years earlier, after battling years of drug addiction. Hana and her daughter Addison are increasingly captivated by the story behind this unsolved crime, but without the official police force behind her, Hana must risk compromising her own peace and relationships if justice is to be served.

Following on from the excellent first novel in this series, BETTER THE BLOOD, RETURN TO BLOOD is centred, once again, around Hana Westerman. Only now she has turned in her police badge, abandoning a career as a detective in the Auckland CIB, she's returned to her hometown of Tātā Bay to do some running repairs. On her own psyche which is battered and bruised, on her relationships with extended family which are fractious and strained, and to spend time with her beloved father, Eru. Not that everything about Tātā Bay is a happy memory, there's a monument to her high school classmate that she runs past daily, a Māori man in jail for that murder, despite Eru's misgivings about the conviction.

All of which ends up interwoven with a more current case when Westerman's daughter Addison finds a skeleton in the sand dunes. There's something about the backstory of this victim - a young Māori woman who had led a difficult life - that pulls Westerman and Addison into this investigation, despite neither of them having an official capacity, or even any direct connection with the victim.

Michael Bennett's style in these novels (the third, CARVED IN BLOOD due out mid 2025) is a combination of investigation of crime, interwoven with cultural and community implications. In all cases, Māori sensibility, community and interactions are forefront, often with clear illustration of how incompatible, cack-handed and unnecessary colonial methods are in communities looking for tradition, culture and resilience.

The cast of characters revolving around Westerman, her daughter and her friend, the elders in their Māori community, relatives and long-term friends, as well as her ex-husband, and his new family are an interesting bunch, as is the way this sort of blended and extended family works. There's tensions between everyone, and there is a lot of understanding and acceptance along the way. Westerman's position in the sandwich generation is also clear - her father potentially failing, her daughter still finding her way, there's something universal about that depiction of the generation caught as the carer between kids and parents, each with very different requirements. It's a particularly interesting portrayal in someone who so patently doesn't have their own act together in so many ways, creating an interesting triangle of need between the three age groups.

There's a well known adage about second novel syndrome, and there are a few glimpses of that in RETURN TO BLOOD. It's a bit inclined to wander at points, higher on emotion and the personal, than perhaps the crime and the criminal. Aspects of the case plot were a bit predictable, feeling a little padded to allow for the personal issues being addressed. This might be an issue for readers who are on the lookout for plot dense, action focused crime fiction. For those who are prepared to take their crime with their personal, to have a look at the development of a character who arrived on the scene with a massive thump in the first novel, RETURN TO BLOOD will have them awaiting the third book very eagerly indeed.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"An atypical amateur sleuth" - review of HELL'S BELLS

HELL'S BELLS by Jill Johnson (Black & White, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Eustacia Rose's life is beginning to return to normal: she is back teaching at UCL and her relationship with Matilde is blossoming. But when a man is found dead with a needle in his neck, that fragile peace begins to crumble. Eustacia finds a painting of herself with a syringe next to her neck and discovers that there are other people who seem to know more about the killing than they are letting on.

The threat around Eustacia only increases as a PhD student begins to stalk and harass her to gain access to her poisonous plant collection. After Eustacia continually refuses, he contacts a lab that is illegally selling synthetic plant toxins but turns up dead shortly after. As the body count rises, Eustacia has no choice but to investigate the deaths in earnest.

But murders aren't the only thing on her mind as interactions with a new detective cause tensions with Matilde that Eustacia has no idea how to resolve. What's more, run-ins with a mysterious white-haired women are making her recall long-buried memories. Eustacia must solve the mysteries of her past and this case if she wants to escape from this toxic situation unscathed.

Eustacia Rose is not your typical amateur sleuth. When we first met her in Devil’s Breath (published as The Woman in the Garden in the United States), she’s prickly, awkward, a disgraced professor of botanical toxicology hiding away from the world while tending a rooftop garden full of poisonous plants and regularly spying on the comings and goings of her attractive neighbour. A gloriously eccentric loner who’s as much a mystery herself as the crimes she gets caught up in. While her captivating first outing was a BBC Between the Covers pick and dual Ngaio Marsh Awards finalist, it did feel like Eustacia Rose’s story deserved to bloom for more than one season.

So it’s great to see her back in Hell’s Bells, the second mystery from Brighton UK-based Māori storyteller Jill Johnson. This time Professor Rose has returned to teaching at University College London, only for a sudden death that looks like a possible poisoning and a stalker-ish PhD student with eyes on Eustacia’s poisonous plant collection to upturn the life she tries to keep well in order.

When the student also turns up dead, Eustacia feels compelled to investigate.

Johnson, who used to run a leading UK comics store (and later studied for a degree in horticulture), has crafted a wonderfully unusual heroine. Blunt yet unintentionally hilarious at times, fearful yet brave, Eustacia and her relationships with others, often botanically categorised, deliver a fresh feel to the intriguing mystery storylines. A very good read that cements Eustacia Rose as one of the more interesting series characters to appear on the crime and thriller scene in recent times.

This is a growing series (a third, Belladonna, will be published in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand later in 2025) that will delight classic mystery fans, and those who love quirky, eccentric detectives..

[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.

"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.

Review: PREY by Vanda Symon

PREY by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books, 2024)

Reviewed by Alyson Baker

On her first day back from maternity leave, Detective Sam Shephard is thrown straight into a cold-case investigation – the unsolved murder of a highly respected Anglican Priest in Dunedin.

The case has been a thorn in the side of the Police hierarchy, and for her boss it' s personal. With all the witness testimony painting a picture of a dedicated church and family man, what possible motive could there have been for his murder?

But when Sam starts digging deeper into the case, it becomes apparent someone wants the sins of the past to remain hidden. And when a new potential witness to the crime is found brutally murdered, there is pressure from all quarters to solve the case before anyone else falls prey. But is it already too late... ?

Detective Sam Shephard is back at work after six months maternity leave, now mum to baby Amelia. She is immediately given a cold case from 25 years ago: an “attack against a man of God on the steps of a cathedral on an ungodly winter’s night”. Sam doesn’t know whether her nemesis The Boss, DI Johns, has given her the case because he thinks she can solve it, or as part of his ongoing game of “Slam-a-Sam”. All she does know is everyone she talks to about the crime is “being economic with the truth”.

Sam must work out whether the original investigation in 1999 missed anything, and/or whether those still alive know anything about the case that they would finally like to share. What makes her job more than tricky is that The Boss was not only on the original investigation team, but he is now married to the daughter of the victim, who was 15 years old at the time of the killing.     

What Sam uncovers is a morass of mis-directions about events surrounding the death. The scene of the crime is very triggering for her – and she becomes aware that the church can be as sexist and suspicious of anyone not regarded as ‘normal’ as many in the police force: “humans with dicks and balls seemed to have special privileges as far as The Boss was concerned.”

Two people who were originally seen as suspicious by both church members and police were Mel Smythe, who “pushed boundaries on what was proper”, and Aaron Cox, an ex-gang member who was friends with the victim. Sam sees through these prejudices and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and a fair hearing. She does start to wonder if she’s lost the knack of making people open up to her when stories start to sound a bit off, not quite fitting together. However, that could be due to her having to manage poopy nappies, breast pumps, sleepless nights, daycare drop offs and pickups, as well as the cold case. A cold case that suddenly has the addition of a new murder.

Fortunately, Sam has her mate and Amelia’s dad, Paul, to help, and her friend Maggie as moral support. And she needs sounding boards when her suspicions veer from abuse in care, to blackmail, to mistaken identity. As always with Symon’s Sam Shepard mysteries, the book goes to some very raw places, and Sam has some confronting conversations, leading to affecting moments.

The characterisations in Prey are complex and interesting – genuinely good people behave appallingly, and some who behave appallingly do so to protect others. Sam is heartbroken that acts intended to safeguard victims, hurt them even more, and that people have slunk away rather than stepping forward to help when they have had the opportunity.

Symon has again crafted a well-structured, intriguing mystery. The addition of Amelia to Sam’s world, and her stable loving relationship with Paul, makes her aware that she needs to address some of the trauma of her own youth – adding further texture to this great #YeahNoir character.

Alyson Baker is a crime-loving former librarian in Nelson. This review first appeared on her blog, which you can check out here. 

A riveting read with a fascinating heroine - review of ECHO

ECHO by Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer, Dec 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Hardwicke House, home to Belverton College’s exclusive Minotaur Society, is no stranger to tragedy. And when a body turns up in the field next to the mansion, the scene looks chillingly familiar.

Chicago PD sends hard-nosed Detective Harriet “Harri” Foster to investigate. The victim is Brice Collier, a wealthy Belverton student, whose billionaire father, Sebastian, owns Hardwicke and ranks as a major school benefactor. Sebastian also has ties to the mansion’s notorious past, when thirty years ago, hazing led to a student’s death in the very same field.

Could the deaths be connected? With no suspects or leads, Harri and her partner, Detective Vera Li, will have to dig deep to find answers. No charges were ever filed in the first case, and this time, Harri’s determined the killer must pay. But still grieving her former partner’s death, Harri must also contend with a shadowy figure called the voice—and their dangerous game of cat and mouse could threaten everything. 

Edgar and Anthony Award nominee Tracy Clark returns with a tense third instalment in her acclaimed series starring Detective Harriet ‘Harri’ Foster that raises questions about the ongoing impact of trauma and loss, and the fine line between justice and revenge. 

On a frigid February morning, two college girls discover a near-frozen body of a young man in an empty lot, leading to Harri and her Chicago PD colleagues investigating tragedies present and past at Hardwicke House, the home to Belverton College’s exclusive Minotaur Society. Matters quickly become complicated, as the victim is Brice Collier, the scion of billionaire Sebastien Collier, who owns Hardwicke House and is a major benefactor to Belverton College. An absent father, who still wields plenty of power.

What does it mean that Brice’s death looks a lot like a student hazing gone wrong, 30 years before? 

As she navigates the lies and obfuscations of many involved, Harri must also deal with a shadowy figure who taunts her about how corruption led the way to her former partner’s suicide, and seems to want to play a dangerous game that threatens to upturn Harri’s work and personal life. And with the police department refusing to further investigate her partner’s death, Harri is left frustrated. 

Dangerously ready to boil over. 

Clark crafts a very good read; a riveting tale that quickly lures you in and then has great narrative drive throughout several twists and turns, as well as plenty of substance. Harri, the only black female detective in a male-dominate police force, is an intriguing series heroine, with plenty to unpack along the way. Talented and determined, with a stubborn streak that could cause issues. 

Clark doesn’t shy away from the impact of police work on Harri and her colleagues as they face dark deeds on a daily basis. The constraints, the policies, the stresses and pressures and power plays that can derail or shackle investigations. There’s a growing ensemble feel too, as others in the squad and surrounds have key roles to play, and bring added depth rather than being mere foils for Harri. 

Overall, Echo is an excellent read in a strong series that may leave many readers, like me, wanting plenty more of Detective Harriet Foster and her colleagues and friends. Recommended.

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.

"Fascinating characters and culture" - review of SILENT ARE THE DEAD

SILENT ARE THE DEAD by DM Rowell (Crooked Lane Books, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Mud Sawpole recently returned to the Kiowas from her high-powered career and was plunged into the vortex of a crime that nearly consumed her and the tribe. The danger hasn’t gone away—and now, Mud faces an even greater threat. There’s an illegal fracking operation underway that threatens the sanctity of the Kiowas’ ancestral homeland, but there’s also an evil hidden right within the heart of the tribe.

Two Kiowa have been stealing tribal artifacts from needy families, and now the pair of thieves have had a falling out. Not only are there numerous treasures missing—a cherished headdress, sash, and lance, and two of the original Jefferson Peace Medals awarded to the tribe—but there’s a whiff of murder in the air. As Mud and her cousin Denny attempt to retrieve the stolen artifacts, they run headlong into the frackers, who will stop at nothing to get their profits.

Mud retreats to the tribal sweat lodge to garner some insight into the case, and she thinks she finally glimpses the truth. But it’s already too late for one victim — and it looks like Mud is next on the killer’s hit list...

I really enjoyed Native American author DM Rowell's first novel, Never Name the Dead, which introduced Mae "Mud" Sawpole, a member of the Kiowa tribe who'd been building a successful career in Silicon Valley before being called back to Oklahoma only to discover a tribe in disarray, her grandfather missing, and fracking shattering the land. 

First time out Rowell did a good job drawing readers in and seasoning her debut with lots of Kiowa culture and history, balancing action with fascinating characters. Unfortunately she doesn’t strike quite the same balance with this patchier second effort. Sophomore slump? 

Picking up almost immediately after the first book, Silent are the Dead sees Mud keen to return to California to deal with life-changing work deadlines, but dragged into investigating theft of artifacts from the tribal museum, and reports of a body being found.

Overnight, she traverses tribal lands with her cousin Denny, searching for answers, and arguing about who to believe. Some of this gets quite repetitive, in between some really cool set-pieces or moments, and nice insights into Kiowa history and culture. 

Rowell clearly has storytelling talent, and it’s great to have her voice in the mystery genre. However, Silent are the Dead could have perhaps done with some tighter editing. 

While feeling slightly underwhelmed by book two, I'm still interested in the next in the series.

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.

"A character centric ride through modern America" - review of GUIDE ME HOME

GUIDE ME HOME by Attica Locke (Viper, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Texas Ranger Darren Mathews has handed in his badge. A choice made three years before, which served justice if not the law, means that he may now stand trial. And his mother - an intermittent and destructive force in his life - is the cause of his fall from grace.

And yet it is his mother's reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl's own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren's mother wants her son to work the case.

Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don't want her found, it is his own family's history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.

For me, Texas-born Attica Locke's superb 2017 thriller Bluebird, Bluebird, the first in her series starring black Texas Ranger Darren Mathews, may be one of the best novels of the past decade, with its rich storytelling and incisive observations about dangerous rhetoric emboldening a white supremacist underbelly desperately clinging on in America.

Five years after its excellent sequel, Heaven My Home, we now have a fitting finale to an outstanding ‘Highway 59’ trilogy. With the legal consequences of past choices still hanging over him like a sword of Damocles, a bourbon-soaked Mathews hands in his badge. Then his mother, who’s played a key role in his many troubles, reappears. Apparently sober, wanting his help to find what’s happened to a black girl missing from the all-white sorority where Darren’s mother now works.

Disillusioned by how law and justice are being twisted in Trump’s America, Mathews reluctantly agrees, only to uncover a snake’s den of deceit, and discover far more about his own family history.

Locke once again soaks readers in the East Texas setting, and the humanity and frustrations of good people trying to live and operate in an unjust world. Mathews is confronted not only by the mystery of a missing girl who everyone – even her family – seems to insist is okay, but the mystery of his mother, and his accepted narrative of his own past. 

Locke takes readers on an emotional, character-centric ride through a slice of modern America, where the prejudices and divisions of the past are stirred up and shaken out in various ways in the present.

While it's a little disappointing Locke has said that Guide Me Home will be the final Darren Mathews tale, for the foreseeable future at least - after originally planning a longer running series - overall it is an excellent read and a fitting finale to a terrific trilogy that captures, all to scarily, some of the simmering realities of a nation changed, or perhaps just revealed, by Trump's 'MAGA' inciting runs for President. 

Top shelf. 

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.

Jack Reacher, PG Wodehouse, and Mumbai slums: an interview with Ajay Chowdhury

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the 240th instalment of author interview series, 9mm. Thanks for reading and sharing the 9mm series, and Crime Watch in general (and my work elsewhere) over many years. I've had a lot of fun talking to lots of amazing crime and thriller writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you.

You can check out the full list of of past 9mm interviewees here. What a line-up! With lots more fun to come. Thanks everyone. If you've got a favourite crime or thriller writer who hasn't yet been part of the 9mm series, please let me know, and now I'm back on deck more fully, I'll look to make that happen for you. We've got several interviews with cool crime and thriller writers from several different countries 'already in the can' that will be published soon, so lots to look forward to in the coming weeks and months.

Today I'm very pleased to welcome to 9mm an exciting newer voice in crime writing, Ajay Chowdhury, a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who was born in India and now lives in London where he builds digital businesses, cooks experimental dishes for his wife and daughters and writes through the night.

Chowdhury won the first Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize (effectively a search for new, underrepresented voices in British crime writing), for the beginnings of what became The Waiter. Disgraced former Kolkata detective Kamil Rahman is waiting tables at a Brick Lane restaurant owned by family friends. When a birthday party for his boss’s friend ends in murder, Kamil is arm-twisted into an unofficial investigation alongside Anjoli, his boss’s precocious daughter. 

The series, which is in development for television, continued with The Cook, which delved into homelessness, The Detective, entwined with government surveillance and AI, and most recently The Spy. But for now, Ajay Chowdhury becomes the latest author to stare down the barrel of 9mm. 

9MM INTERVIEW WITH AJAY CHOWDHURY

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?

Probably Bernie Gunther, from the Philip Kerr series. I just think following his life from mid 1930s Germany to the 1950s how he changes, everything he's been through, it's absolutely fantastic. And that was kind of my inspiration for when I knew I was going to get to do a second or third Kamil Rahman book, is, you know, I'd love to be able to follow the guy's life. 

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

I read a huge amount when I was a kid, and certainly the Enid Blyton books are the ones that absolutely grabbed me, the Famous Five. But the one that really showed me good writing was PG Woodhouse. I mean his language, I'd read nothing like it. Anyone who can write a line like "he wasn't disgruntled, but neither was he gruntled", that is really good, right?

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

I was very lucky to have written a children's novel which got published in 2016, Ayesha and the Firefish. I'd been telling my kids that little story at bedtime, and I wrote it, then a friend of mine said, I know a publisher, an editor at Penguin. I just got lucky there as well. They sent it, and this was Penguin India, and they said, Yeah, we'll publish it. Then later it got adapted to become a musical in LA and San Francisco - though I didn't write the musical. 

Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

I'm a huge bridge player. So I play bridge three times a week online. Weekends I'm normally playing a competition online. So I absolutely love playing bridge and then the usual other stuff, you know, travel, eating, cooking. 

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

I would count Calcutta [now Kolkata] and Bombay [Mumbai] as my hometowns, as I lived in both places. But if I take Bombay, where I have some great memories, this is going to sound a weird thing to say, but visit Dharavi, the biggest slum in the world. My next book is about it, but I went for the first time in January with my wife, and it's an extraordinary place. It's a million people, in pretty much one square mile. And it's factories, it's people living there. It's a complete ecosystem. And it's an extraordinary place to visit, and they do tours of it, which make me feel a little bit bad, because it feels slightly like poverty tourism, but it's an extraordinary place. And the tour guide we took, all the money goes back into the community. 

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

I'm a five foot, two inch Indian guy from Mumbai, so I think it would have to be the guy who plays Jack Reacher in the Netflix show [Alan Ritchson]. It'd be pure wish fulfilment. Not Tom Cruise though, that'd be too easy for him to do. But it would be cool to be played by someone six foot six with arms like potato sacks. That's my dream.

Of your writings, which is your favourite or a bit special to you for some particular reason, and why?

Well, it would have to be The Waiter, because it's completely changed the direction of my life. So,  winning the competition and then having them say that, listen, we want more of these books, completely changed my life. I mean, I would not be sitting here next to you at this crime writing festival, Chiltern Kills, if I hadn't won that competition. So yeah, it would have to be that. 

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

So, seeing in a bookshop for the first time. We didn't celebrate it as such, but my wife and I were in Daunt Books in Hampstead, and The Waiter was sitting not on the shelf, they actually had it displayed on a table. And so my wife photographed me in front of it, and then she sneakily took it to the window and put it in the window, photographed me in front of the window, then put it back. So that was very special. The one thing that's never happened so far, and hopefully will sometime, is I have seen someone reading any of my books in the wild, yeah, that would be cool, I'm still waiting for that.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

Well, I mean, a guy came up to me today in the book signing after our panel saying he just finished reading The Detective and how much he absolutely hated the female character [ed note: Kamil's ex-fiancé Maliha, not Anjoli] ... he told me how much he hated her, how he felt she was completely unnecessary, and didn't understand why I put her in the book. So that was a bit controversial, and a story that quickly comes to mind! 

Kia ora, Ajay, we appreciate you having a chat with Crime Watch. 

"Dark issues and delicious writing" - review of THE SPY

THE SPY by Ajay Chowdhury (Harvill Secker, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Kamil Rahman is working for the Metropolitan Police when he gets the call from MI5. They've received intelligence of a terrorist plot, and it's Kamil they need. Posing as a disaffected cop, and working once again in Anjoli's beloved restaurant, Kamil infiltrates the cell. From London he is sent to Kashmir, a place he visited with his parents when he was younger. But his allegiance becomes blurred when he finds himself face to face with an old nemesis... 

I’ve been an unabashed fan of tech founder and CEO turned crime writer Ajay Chowdhury’s moreish mystery series starring disgraced Kolkata detective Kamil Rahman since the first outing, The Waiter (2021), which as an unpublished novel won the Bloody Scotland-Harvill Secker Prize for new voices. In that first book, Kamil was eking out a new life as a waiter at Tandoori Knights, a friend’s Indian restaurant in London’s Brick Lane, before murder intervened, and he was arm-twisted into undertaking an unofficial investigation alongside Anjoli, his new boss’s precocious daughter.

My only trouble with Chowdhury’s books is that, in among the dark deeds leavened with plenty of humour and heart, every time I read one I’d become so damned hungry, due to the food references!

As the more-ish series has grown, Kamil has returned to official policing with London’s famed Met Police. Although he perhaps got more respect even as berated waiter in Tandoori Knights. In The Spy he’s recruited by MI5 to try to infiltrate a dangerous terrorist cell. Playing the role of a disenchanted copper, exiled back to the Indian restaurant. Meanwhile some things haven’t changed, including Kamil’s complicated, stuttering, friends or maybe more relationship Anjoli, who once again gets drawn into amateur sleuthing as she starts to investigate the kidnapping of a teenage boy. 

As Kamil’s discoveries lead abroad, into the brutality and suffering of the long-running Kashmir conflict, he and Anjoli both face grave danger. Stakes are high, personally and politically. 

Once again, Chowdhury deftly crafts an engrossing, highly readable tale that delves into some of the darkest issues facing society, while providing plenty of light through the humour and heart of the characters, and some of the events. It's a tricky balance, but Chowdhury deftly pulls it off, delivering another cracking tale in what's become a really wonderful series, and a great addition to the genre. 

The Spy is delicious crime and thriller fiction, on all fronts. 

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.

"Deliciously tense" - review of THE LAST GUESTS

THE LAST GUESTS by JP Pomare (Mulholland, 2021)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Newlyweds Lina and Cain don’t make it out to their property on gorgeous Lake Tarawera as often as they’d like, so when Cain suggests they rent the house out to vacationers, Lina reluctantly agrees. While the home has been in her family for generations, they could use the extra money. And at first, Lina is amazed at how quickly guests line up, and at how much they’re willing to pay.

 

But both Lina and Cain have been keeping secrets, secrets that won’t be put off by fresh paint or a new alarm system. And someone has been watching them—their mundane tasks, their intimate moments. When a visit takes a deadly turn, Lina realizes someone out there knows something they shouldn’t…and that welcoming strangers into your home is playing a dangerous game.

For me, indigenous storyteller JP Pomare (Ngā Puhi) is one of the most exciting new voices to emerge in Australasian thriller writing – and beyond – over the past several years. From his terrific first outing, the psychological thriller Call Me Evie (2019), the Melbourne-based Māori novelist has made a mark with readers, critics, and awards judges thanks to his adroit blend of quality prose with keen psychological insights, fascinating protagonists (often heroines), and a rich sense of people and place. 

He continued his ascent with his fourth novel, The Last Guests, a tense and terrifying tale of an AirBNB-style rental situation gone horribly, horribly wrong. Lina and Cain are a young married couple who are struggling to deal with past traumas and present secrets. Former Special Forces soldier Cain is feeling lost after leaving the army, having to overcome injuries to body and mind and unable to get traction for his new fitness training business. Lina is a paramedic taking dangerous steps to fulfil her deepest desires.

When an SAS buddy of Cain’s suggest they list Lina’s childhood home on the beautiful Lake Tarawera for short-stay rentals, the couple are conflicted. It could ease some financial woes. But does Lina want strangers living even in short-term in the house where her grandparents raised her, that means so much? The potential for ‘easy money’ outbids the risk, so Cain and Lina dive in. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, a lot. Strange things, then deadly things. Someone has been watching Lina, and her life at home and work is upturned. What can she salvage, and how far will she go?

Pomare conjures a deliciously tense tale that entwines ‘domestic noir’ with issues of technology, voyeurism, and the coping mechanisms people may use to deal with trauma and the stresses of life. This is a ripsnorting read that hums along on fine prose, from a writer who is like a magician with his literary sleight-of-hand. 

When Pomare wrote The Last Guests he may have been early in his career (which has continued to flourish with further books, including 2024's outstanding 17 Years Later), but he’s already stamping his mark as a masterful storyteller. Definitely a writer to watch, and to read. Terrific. 

Note: this is a lightly edited (updated) version of a review first published in Mystery Scene magazine in the United States in 2021. 

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.

First Impressions Friday: THE WAITER by Ajay Chowdhury

Kia ora and gidday, welcome to the very first instalment of a new semi-regular series here on Crime Watch. With 'First Impressions Friday', we'll regularly on Fridays revisit the first novels of some of my favourite authors and crime fiction series and characters.

Though, in fairness, this is something of a twist on something I did a few times back in 2014-2015, where I and other crime critics discussed the first appearances of some of our favourite crime fiction series characters. We may revisit some of those characters (eg Longmire, Miss Marple, Tom Thorne) along with fresh looks at both the first appearances of other series characters I love in crime fiction, or just debut novels of other authors, series or not.

Today, we're kicking things off by revisiting the recent beginnings of a fresh and exciting new voice and very welcome addition to our crime and thriller landscape, with The Waiter, the first novel in the Kamil Rahman series from India-born tech entrepreneur and London theatre director turned crime novelist Ajay Chowdhury.

Before I dive into the storyline and my thoughts on The Waiter, a wee bit of background. I originally became aware of Chowdhury and his first crime novel after he won the first Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, which was effectively a search for new, underrepresented voices in British crime writing. The competition, open to BAME authors (Black, Asian, and minority ethnicity), required Chowdhury and others to submit 10,000 words of a manuscript and a synopsis of the whole novel.

As I discovered, when I interviewed him for a feature in the Weekend Herald (my home country's biggest newspaper - paywalled, sorry) ahead of his debut's publication, the idea of someone in a London curry house solving crimes had niggled at Chowdhury for many years, though it evolved from Miss Marple-like cosy amateur sleuthing by a Bangladeshi chef to a grittier tale involving a disgraced Kolkata detective, Kamil Rahman, effectively exiled from his homeland and working as a waiter in Brick Lane, while Chowdhury was entering for the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize. 

Chowdhury, a tech entrepreneur who’s been founder or CEO of several massively successful start-ups (whose values grew to nine-plus figures and were sold to the likes of Apple and Microsoft), including Shazam, thinks the idea behind The Waiter stuck with him for more than a decade, for two reasons. 

“One was the feeling that in a restaurant, as a waiter or chef, you get to see so many people,” he told me back in early 2021. “When you see people in a restaurant, you’re often seeing very unguarded moments: people who’ve had an argument, who are on a second date, who are conducting business. Or people getting drunk at nine. I liked the idea of someone really observant watching all of this then thinking about what the lives of these people were really like. It wasn’t a big jump to that’s kind of what a detective does too, picking up clues and thinking about people and their motivations.”

Ajay Chowdhury (left) at the recent Bute Noir festival alongside Trevor Wood, Tim Sullivan
and myself, where we discussed Kamil Rahman in a 'Detectives Overcoming Obstacles' panel

The other reason that he could never get the idea behind The Waiter out of his head, was he really wanted to write about London's East End. “I grew up in Calcutta, and you know Brick Lane, that whole area, I thought was just ripe fodder for a fantastic crime novel. I wanted to see a detective who was a bit more like me. I’d been a fish out of water in London when I first came here, although that was a long time ago. Someone who missed home, who missed the food in Calcutta; all those things came together.”

The result is a truly tasty feast. 

In The Waiter, former Kolkata detective Kamil Rahman is looking for a fresh start, and is waiting tables at the Indian restaurant owned by family friends. Delivering plates of curry to Brick Lane diners and scrubbing away his fall-from-grace. When a birthday party for his boss’s friend ends in murder, Kamil is arm-twisted into an unofficial investigation alongside Anjoli, his boss’s precocious daughter. Their sleuthing brings up bad memories of the Bollywood murder case that ended his career, and Kamil soon finds that while he may have tried to forget his past, it hasn’t forgotten him. Dangerously so.

A fresh and exciting voice on the British crime writing scene, Chowdhury tantalises readers of The Waiter with fascinating characters, intriguing action, and vivid scene-setting; not to mention some mouth-watering food references. Seriously, you’re going to get hungry while reading this book! The debut author deftly juggles dual timelines as murder cases present and past unfold in London and Kolkata, delivering a really delicious debut that certainly left me very keen for seconds! 

Fortunately the series has continued with The Cook, The Detective, and earlier this year, The Spy. 

Have you read The Waiter, or the Kamil Rahman series in general? Do you have any favourite Indian-Bengali dishes that are mentioned in the series? Please share in the comments. 

Running backs, wrongful convictions, and the Harlem of the West: an interview with Robert Justice

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the 236th instalment of author interview series, 9mm, which has been resurrected this year after largely going into hibernation and only occasionally emerging in 2021-2023, for a variety of personal reasons.

Thanks for reading and sharing the 9mm series, and Crime Watch in general (and my work elsewhere) over the years. I've had a lot of fun talking to some amazing crime writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you. You can check out the full list of of past 9mm interviewees here. What a line-up. With lots more fun to come. Thanks everyone. 

If you've got a favourite crime or thriller writer who hasn't yet been part of the 9mm series, please let me know, and now I'm back on deck more fully, I'll look to make that happen for you. We've got several interviews with cool crime and thriller writers from several different countries 'already in the can' that will be published soon, so lots to look forward to in the coming weeks and months.

Today I'm very pleased to welcome to 9mm a rising star of US crime fiction, Denver author Robert Justice, whose debut novel They Can't Take Your Name was runner-up for the 2020 Eleanor Taylor Bland Award. A sequel, A Dream in the Dark, was recently published, continuing the fight of Liza Brown and Eli Stone against the scourge of wrongful convictions in a flawed criminal justice system.

Denver author Robert Justice, who
is passionate about righting the
scourge of wrongful convictions

Robert is the host of the Crime Writers of Color podcast, and works as a non-profit leader with over thirty years of leadership experience in meeting the holistic needs of people. As he says in the Author's Note to his debut, wrongful convictions are all too real in US criminal justice; conservative estimates of only 1-2% wrongful convictions may seem like an acceptable strike rate, ie 98-99% of convictions are 'safe', but with 2.5 million people in prison in the United States, that means even at the lowest estimates, there are tens of thousands of innocent people in prison! 

Robert is passionate about righting the wrongs of wrongful convictions (he notes that almost 2,500 men and women have already been exonerated in the USA through various means, totalling more than 21,000 years lost) and it is a subject that greatly impacts his crime novels. Robert donated a share of his advance and committed to giving a portion of all future proceeds to his favourite innocence project, The Korey Wise Innocence Project at the University of Colorado. He say, "The average cost to free an innocent person is enormous, and my hope is that this series of books will raise enough money that we might actually be able to say that together we had a part in somebody’s freedom."

You can read more about Robert Justice at his website, but for now he become the latest author to stare down the barrel of 9mm. 

9MM: AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT JUSTICE

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?

I have too many favorites! How do I choose between Attica Locke’s Darren Matthews; Mosley’s Joe King Oliver; Nadine Matheson’s Inspector Anjelica Henley; or Yasmine Angoe’s, Nena Knight?

Let’s go with my most recent favorite crime fiction hero, Glory Broussard, the wonderful creation of Danielle Arceneaux. Glory is an unfiltered, recently divorced, Black woman of a certain age who investigates murders while keeping tabs on her side hustle of as a bookie. What’s not to love?

Dallas Cowboys running back terrorised NFL
defences during his Hall of Fame career 

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

In my youth, I stumbled upon the biography of Hall of Fame American football player Tony Dorsett and was transfixed. For the next few years, my single-minded goal in life was to play in the NFL, but then I read the biography of Olympian Eric Liddell, and running became my ultimate love. And then I read…

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) - unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

The decade prior to my debut novel, I wrote and published four non-fiction books on a variety of topics, including jazz. When I turned to writing novels, that’s also when I went with my pseudonym—Robert Justice - so as not to confuse my readers. My name is Robert and now I write about justice.

Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

I’m going to have to ignore the parameters of the question and go with writing! I work a demanding job in the non-profit sector meeting people’s basic human needs. It’s rewarding but can also take an emotional toll. Writing (and reading) allows me to rest from the demands of my day-to-day life, as I create new worlds. When I go on vacation, I rarely take a break from writing because it’s not work—writing is the way I unwind!

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

Five Points is the historic heart of Denver’s Black community and the setting for my Wrongful Conviction Novels. Before gentrification set in, this neighborhood was where African-Americans in the Mile-High City lived, shopped, attended church and found their doctors, lawyers, barbers and beauticians. In the center of Five Points is The Rossonian, a historic jazz club where all the greats played on their way through town. If you ever make it to Denver, be sure to swing through Five Points—the Harlem of the West.

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

Jeffrey Wright, for sure! In American Fiction, he portrayed a middle-age Black fiction writer with a salt and pepper beard. It wouldn’t be much of a leap for him to play me in a movie, though he’d have to add another two inches to his beard.

Of your writings, which is your favourite or a bit special to you for some particular reason, and why?

My latest novel, A DREAM IN THE DARK, feels pretty special. I never saw myself as a fiction writer and at some level the success of my debut, THEY CAN'T TAKE YOUR NAME, felt like a fluke. But now with the release of my second Wrongful Conviction Novel I’m starting to believe I can do this.

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

On the day when my debut, THEY CAN'T TAKE YOUR NAME, launched, I went to my local bookstore and to my surprise, my book was at the front of the store on the New Release shelf—face out! I spent the next couple of hours driving to other stores and taking pictures of my book on their shelves. That night I scrolled through my gallery with while sipping my favorite rum.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

A man arrived late to my author talk, cradling a copy of my debut. As I spoke, tears streamed down his cheeks while he continued to hug my book close to his chest. At the signing table afterwards, he shared his wife had recently passed away and that my character, Eli (a man struggling to survive the death of his wife) was helping him face his own grief. We hugged and have kept in touch.

Kia ora, Robert, we appreciate you having a chat with Crime Watch. 

Have you read Robert Justice's wrongful conviction novels? Do you like how crime novels can explore real-life issues through the prism of page-turning fictional tales? Do you have any favourites of this ilk?