Māori artist, gardener, and detective Hana Westerman is a single mother who's fought endemic prejudice throughout her career in the Auckland Criminal Investigation Bureau. After receiving a mysterious video, Hana is led to a crime scene in a secret room where a man is found ritualistically hanging and a puzzling inscription has been left behind. After a second, apparently unrelated, death, Hana uncovers a connection to a 160-year-old crime when 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 over a century ago. There were six men in that British troop, which means there are four more potential murders.
Hana's pursuit of this serial killer becomes chillingly personal, forcing her to confront a painful event twenty years before when she was new to the police force-- an event that called into question her loyalty to her Māori heritage and changed her relationship with her family and friends forever.
Unfortunately, she's going to learn that there is even worse to come.
~
If you're a reader, like me, who loves to solve mysteries in far-flung corners of the world, you're going to want to pick up a copy of Michael Bennett's Better the Blood. (Once you learn the origin of the title, you might feel a chill running down your spine, too.) The opening scene in which a photographer tells his subjects to hold still, that if they move, they "...will be but a smudge on the page of history" is prophetic and compelling. That scene let me know that I was about to read something special. I wasn't disappointed.
Better the Blood is steeped in Māori history and culture and makes Bennett's story incredibly powerful. In the hardcover edition, when the Māori language is used, the translations are right on the same page which I greatly appreciated because their proximity kept me rooted in the story.
There are some passionate, vivid characters in this book. Hana's daughter, Addison, a singer who's fierce in her insistence on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand, is one. The serial killer is menacing, frightening, and... surprisingly sympathetic. I do like a bad guy who doesn't always do what you expect him to do.
But the fiercest, most vivid and passionate character is Hana Westerman herself. She's a Māori woman who's been cut off from her family and her people for twenty years. A woman who-- when she knows she's right-- will stand up to her superiors even if it costs her her job. A woman who doesn't know when to quit. Hana is the type of character who's fully capable of joining the ranks of my all-time favorites: Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope, Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway, Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon... need I go on?
I want more.
Better the Blood by Michael Bennett
ISBN: 9780802160607
Grove Atlantic © 2023
Hardcover, 336 pages
Police Procedural, #1 Hana Westerman mystery
Rating: A+
Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen Bookstore.
