Record Details

Catalog Search

Search The Catalog



Better the blood / Michael Bennett.

Summary:

"An absorbing, clever debut thriller that speaks to the longstanding injustices faced by New Zealand's indigenous peoples, by an acclaimed Māori screenwriter and director. A tenacious Māori detective, Hana Westerman juggles single motherhood, endemic prejudice, and the pressures of her career in Auckland CIB. Led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man ritualistically hanging in a secret room and a puzzling inward-curving inscription. Delving into the investigation after a second, apparently unrelated, death, she uncovers a chilling connection to a historic crime: 160 years before, during the brutal and bloody British colonization of New Zealand, a troop of colonial soldiers unjustly executed a Māori Chief. Hana realizes that the murders are utu-the Māori tradition of rebalancing for the crime committed eight generations ago. There were six soldiers in the British troop, and since descendants of two of the soldiers have been killed, four more potential murders remain. Hana is thus hunting New Zealand's first serial killer. The pursuit soon becomes frighteningly personal, recalling the painful event when as a new cop two decades before, Hana was part of a police team sent to end by force a land rights occupation by indigenous peoples on the same ancestral mountain where the Chief was killed, calling once more into question her loyalty to her roots. Worse still, a genealogical link to the British soldiers brings the case terrifyingly close to Hana's own family. Twisty and thought-provoking, Better the Blood is the debut of a remarkable new talent in crime fiction."-- Publisher description.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780802160607
  • ISBN: 0802160603
  • ISBN: 0802162657
  • ISBN: 9780802162656
  • Physical Description: 329 pages ; 24 cm.
  • Edition: 1st Grove Atlantic edition
  • Publisher: New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023.

Content descriptions

General Note:
Publisher, dates, and paging may vary.
Subject:
Māori (New Zealand people) > Fiction.
Murder > Investigation > Fiction.
Revenge > Fiction.
Single mothers > Fiction.
Women detectives > Fiction.
Auckland (N.Z.) > Fiction.
Genre:
Fiction.

Available copies

  • 40 of 42 copies available at NC Cardinal. (Show)
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Onslow County Public Library.

Holds

  • 1 current hold with 42 total copies.
Sort by distance from:
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Sneads Ferry Branch Library FIC BENNETT (Text) 36015000480836 Adult Fiction Available -