I loved this book.

I loved all the characters and their development throughout the story. Even the murderer had me hooked in to his story. The characters feel real and as a reader I really felt for them.

This is a great crime novel but its not just a crime novel. It tells the impacts of colonisation on the Maori people. This booked actually hooked me in just from reading the blurb and it completely lived up to my expectations.

Fantastically written, a book you do not want to miss!

A really good read set in Auckland New Zealand.
Hana Westerman is a Maori detective juggling being a single mother with raising a rebellious daughter.
Hanas heritage is called into question when a series of killings are linked back to an event in history where a Māori leader had been hung in the brutal colonisation of NZ. It seems the killer is tracking down descendants of those responsible and taking retribution. Hanas ex, and her daughters father, is a descendant.
This is a fast, action packed read. There is a lot of history and Māori customs and language with English translation as footnotes. Anyone who wants a well written, detective story with well drawn, interesting characters, this is for you.

#BetterTheBlood #NetGalley

"Our ancestors knew that the way of nature is balance. There is no balance for a people who have had all they cared for stolen. All that was precious and sacred taken."

This is the story of a tenacious Maori detective racing to track down New Zealand's first serial killer. But it's also so much more than that. It's the story of a people displaced, a country simmering to boiling point, of the long reaching effects of colonisation on the little collection of islands I was born and grew up in.

I've been putting off writing this review because I just don't know how to do this book justice. It was an incredible and affecting read that hit me on a totally different level. I think the author himself, an award winning screenwriter and director, actually said it best:

"Aotearoa (New Zealand) is paradise. But it’s a paradise with an awful and bloody colonial history which still impacts everyday life. The social consequences and mamae (cultural pain) of colonisation remain unhealed. Better the Blood explores these raw and unhealed scars through the genre I love most, the crime thriller. My goal was to craft a nail-biting novel that becomes a Trojan horse carrying big, complex, difficult themes."

Bennett absolutely achieved this goal. It is a great crime read, but it also hits a much more poignant and important note as well.

The characters in this book feel so real, I almost felt like I could have just called them up on the phone or seen them on the street. The character development of detective Hana Westerman and her increasing discomfort with the dichotomy of being a Maori woman upholding colonial law as a police officer was really well done.

I also really enjoyed the side characters - pretty much all of them honestly, although I had a soft spot for Stan and I felt like I wanted more closure on him being okay!

The killer is committing awful murders and yet this story was incredible in its nuance - I found myself start questioning whether it was really him who was in the wrong or whether he maybe had a point.

Right from the "oof" of that prologue, I knew this book was going to be something else and it sure was. Apparently it is in development for a six part TV series and I think it will be *incredible* on screen. There were many scenes that played out almost cinematically in my mind - goosebumps inducing.

This is a gritty, masterful book with a beating heart and soul and it will stick with me a long time.