Sign-In
Cart
Better the Blood
Audio Book
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: Jan 10 2023
Language: English
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 is juggling 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 recognizes the murders as utu--the Māori tradition of rebalancing, whether for a personal slight or, now, for a 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 realizes she is hunting New Zealand's first serial killer.
The pursuit soon becomes frighteningly personal, recalling the painful event, two decades before, when Hana, then a new cop, 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.
2 different editions
Also available
Also from
Bennett, Michael
One Team. One Fight. One Family: The History of the Armed Forces Taekwondo Team
Davis, Louis
Bennett, Michael
Medina, Rafael
Paperback
Devil Dolphins of Silver Lagoon and Other Stories: Adventures of a Reluctant Photographer's Assistant
Bennett, Michael
Paperback
Also in
Mystery & Thriller
The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, Volume I: American Tabloid, the Cold Six Thousand; Introduction by Thomas Mallon
Ellroy, James
Hardcover
Coffin Road: An Utterly Gripping Crime Thriller from the Author of the China Thrillers
May, Peter
Paperback
Sabine's Notebook: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine Continues
Bantock, Nick
Hardcover
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Movie Tie-In Edition): Book 1 of the Millennium Trilogy
Larsson, Stieg
Paperback
The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine Concludes
Bantock, Nick
Hardcover
Big Little Truths: Reese's Book Club: A Novel: The Sequel to Big Little Lies
Moriarty, Liane
Hardcover
The Pirate Queen: A Novel from the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Frozen River
Lawhon, Ariel
Hardcover