8. A book written in Australia/Pacific Islands: Better the Blood by Michael Bennett

List Progress: 18/30

The detective crime novel is such a well-known format that it can be used as a structure on which to hang many different things. Cozy mysteries hang hobbies and niche interests on detective novels, many authors use them as a lens to investigate their detective characters, and some use them to tackle larger topics still. New Zealand author Michael Bennett uses his debut detective novel, Better the Blood, to investigate colonialism and racism against Maori communities, and eventually looks even deeper to interrogate detective novels themselves. 

Hana Westerman is a Maori woman and a detective in Auckland, New Zealand, and the book does not shy away from how those two identities are in conflict. Eighteen years prior, she and several other Maori police officers had been pushed to the front lines to shut down peaceful land rights protests from the wider Maori community. She has lived with that shame for almost two decades, and hidden it from her politically-minded and rebellious teenage daughter. But everything gets pulled back into the spotlight when someone begins committing gruesome murders inspired by the 1860’s murder of a chief by British soldiers. Hana has to catch the serial killer while also dealing with her own culpability as part of the prison industrial complex, and it’s a rare police detective novel that will outright challenge the good of being a police detective.

Some parts of Better the Blood could afford to be streamlined or better integrated: the book begins with a subplot about a white rapist who has just evaded justice falsely accusing Hana of police brutality, but the plot is dropped so easily later in the book that it ends up feeling pointless. And considering how early the identity of the killer is revealed, the character work with them in the back half can end up feeling a bit overwrought. But these are ultimately small quibbles about a fast-paced, exciting novel that is not shy about making its points and challenging the fabric of New Zealand society. Better the Blood seems to be the first book of a series, so it will be exciting to see where Hana Westerman’s journeys take her next.

Would I Recommend It: Yes.