Five ‘Sweet As’ Kiwi Crime Authors
by Sara E. Johnson
‘Sweet as’ is Kiwi slang for ‘awesome.’ I want to finish the simile. Sweet as pineapple lumps. Sweet as pavlova. Sweet as crime novels set in New Zealand. In the nine months I spent in Aotearoa (Māori for Land of the Long White Cloud), place after place was ripe for murder and led to my Alexa Glock forensic mystery series: Rotorua with its stinky sulfur belches and bubbling mud pots; Stewart Island with its great white shark cage diving; the Milford Track with raging rivers and swing bridges; Cape Kidnappers—a magnet for Silicon Valley CEO’s who want Apocalypse insurance.
Want to experience New Zealand without wearing compression socks on your 20-hour flight? (That’s Raleigh to Dallas to Auckland.) No worries. The following five Kiwi authors will take you on an all-expenses-paid OE, Kiwi-speak for Overseas Experience.
Ngaio Marsh, Colour Scheme (1942), Died in the Wool (1945)
A leap back in time takes us to Dame Ngaio (pronounced nai-oh) Marsh of the Golden Age and beyond. Marsh set four of her thirty-two Inspector Roderick Alleyn mysteries in New Zealand. (The rest take place in England.) Marsh has an impeccable writing style and creative murder methods.
Colour Scheme, a mystery/spy novel, unfolds in the sulfurous clutches of Rotorua. I read it after writing my first novel Molten Mud Murder, also set in Rotorua, and was naively surprised I was not the first person to use a mud pot as a murder weapon. Marsh’s character Maurice Questing is lured into a pool of boiling mud and left there to—well—cook.
Died in the Wool takes place on a remote sheep station on the South Island. Flossie Rubrick, a member of Parliament, disappears and turns up two weeks later, smothered in a bale of merino. It doesn’t get any woollier than that, eh?
The Ngaio Marsh Awards were started in 2010 to recognize New Zealand excellence in crime fiction, mysteries, and thriller writing. Pop a pineapple lump (a classic Kiwi sweet that in no way or form resembles pineapple) and read on.
Fiona Sussman, The Last Time We Spoke (2016)
Fiona Sussman’s The Last Time We Spoke won a 2017 Ngaio for Best Crime Novel. Sussman explores the fallout of European colonization of the indigenous Māori, a not uncommon theme of Kiwi crime. Carla Reid lives with her husband on a struggling dairy farm. At the opening of the book, she is preparing an anniversary meal to share with him and their grown son. The haunting call of a ruru, a native owl, forewarns of the catastrophic events ahead.
Ben Toroa, a Māori teen from Auckland’s urban underbelly, was abandoned by his whanau, or family, and turned to gang membership to replace it.
The collision of their worlds upends Carla’s life and sends Ben to prison. A third character, the Spirit of Ben’s ancestors, mourns: Another son of Kupe has fallen from my basket, the woven flax now limp and loose. Where will it end, this unraveling? Where will it end?
Better the Blood, Michael Bennett (2022)
Grab a slab of pavlova and Michael Bennett’s fictional debut Better the Blood. The raw effects of the oppression of New Zealand’s native peoples also anchors this can’t-put-down police procedural. I’m not one for serial killers, but Hana Westerman, a Māori detective with Auckland’s Central Investigations Branch and a control junkie, wouldn’t let me go. The title springs from ‘Better the blood of the innocent than none at all,’ and forms the antagonist’s impetus to systematically hunt and kill six ancestors of British soldiers who posed around a Māori tribal chief they hunted, killed, and hung from a tree. The daguerreotype commemorating the occasion surfaces 160 years later and provides clues for Hana to hunt the killer. Bennett’s frequent use of Māori language (with definitions) enhanced my reading haerenga, or journey.
Glacier Murder, Trish McCormack (2013)
Grab your crampons and crunch your way to New Zealand’s Westland Tai Poutini National Park. Glacier Murder, the second book in Trish McCormack’s Philippa Barnes amateur sleuth series, takes you on a dangerous trek. The fierce and deadly Franz Josef Glacier has killed many tourists over the years: in 2009, two brothers were crushed to death by 1200 tons of ice when they jumped over safety barriers. In Glacier Murder, Philippa, a glacier guide, discovers a mangled body in a crevasse. Just another clueless tourist, eh?
You’re too smart. Someone wishes the ice had not spat the victim out and will do anything—including kill again—to keep their deadly deeds frozen.
Overkill, Vanda Symon (2007)
Wrap up your trip down under with a Toffee Pop (a fave New Zealand cookie) and Vanda Symon’s Overkill. Constable Sam Shepherd is the only cop in the small rural town of Mataura on the South Island. Says Symon: Sam had originally been a male detective in the first draft, but it just wasn’t working, and then one day my husband did something really dumb nut and I thought I can’t even understand the man I married, so how on earth can I live inside the head of a male. So, I changed her to being a woman, and hey presto, Sam arrived fully formed, with sass and attitude.
After skimming the prologue of Overkill—too scary—I settled in for a great ride. I loved reading about the invasive possum from Australia, the birds, the flora, the Kiwi heartland culture, and the Toffee Pops. Sam must investigate the murder of her ex-boyfriend’s wife. What could possibly go wrong? Sam is a hot mess and Symon tackles a global subject in the surprising reveal.
Author Bio
Sara E. Johnson spent nine months exploring wondrous New Zealand. Everywhere she snooped, there was a mystery that needed writing. The Bone Riddle, Sara’s fourth novel in the Alexa Glock forensic mysteries set in New Zealand, comes out June 2023. Molten Mud Murder, The Bones Remember, and The Bone Track proceed it.