I really enjoyed this one, and will be putting the sequel on my TBR.
Thank you very much to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the ARC!

A serial killer thriller set in modern day New Zealand. Hana is a police detective and a Maori women, two identities that clash more often than they cooperate. Things get more complicated when a string of gruesome corpses begin to appear across Auckland, decorated with mysterious symbols and with no clear connection between the victims. All is confusing, until the discovery of an 1863 photograph of a group of British soldiers and a dead Maori chief gives Hana some clues to the killer's motivations. The murders are a retribution for colonization because, as the killer says repeatedly throughout the book, "Better the blood of the innocent than no blood at all". Will Hana prevent additional deaths, or will she join the killer to atone for her own past sins?

Murder mystery in New Zealand was an intriguing hook for me, but the mystery part of the book is so cliched and boring. The whole 'serial killer leaves mysterious clues to tempt a police detective he's obsessed with' plot is ripped straight from a million '90s thrillers – The Bone Collector, Seven, Along Came a Spider – without an interesting updates or twists to account for the fact that it's been twenty years since then. The discovery of the photo above should technically be a spoiler, and is certainly treated like some grand, exciting revelation when it's revealed 100 pages in, but considering that the reader found out about it in the prologue, it's not exactly a surprise. There's no tension, no build-up of suspense – not even a red herring for interest! The very first name that the police investigate is the correct guy, and it's just a matter of tracking him down.

The setting is interesting, as are some of the details of Maori culture and history, but this could have been a much, much better book.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6229522645

A really solid procedural mystery. I enjoyed the pacing, the characters, the backstory and especially the inclusion of Indigenous stories. I will definitely read the next book in the series!

Michael Bennett's police procedural follows a M'ori detective as she deals with a serial killer reacting back to over two centuries of colonialism for revenge. The plot explores so many difficulties followed by indigenous cultures while also featuring the tension of a crime novel - breath-stopping, terrifying moments for all involved.

I found the story to be heart-wrenching yet unputdownable as I waited to see how it would come to a conclusion. Many times post-colonial stories feel preachy, but this book felt fair (as fair as I can judge from a completely different culture on the other side of the world). The decisions Hana had to make seemed impossible, and the final decisions in the book... Wow.

I would love to read more about this character and where she goes from this ending.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC.

Although I wouldn't call it my favorite crime/mystery novel I've read this year "Better the Blood" by Michael Bennett is definitely a great and somehow scary book.

It's my first time dealing with a book that's set in New Zealand and it focuses on Māori tribes and their culture. My knowledge of the colonization of Aotearoa (New Zealand) is not as big as I'd wished for it to be but with this book, I was able to learn at least a bit about the culture that's been around for quite a long time.

The crime itself was written beautifully. The whole point of the crime was finding the rebalancing - utu which is a Māori concept. The descriptions of everything that involves the Māori culture and their traditions are incredible and even a person that has no knowledge of it will understand everything that the author is trying to show in his book.

After reading some of the reviews from people that live in New Zealand and know a lot about Māori I'm convinced that reading this book was a great choice, and hopefully, many more people will decide to reach for this greatly written debut novel.

This is not my usual type of book. Since I started blogging, I have slowly tapered off the police procedurals in my reading due to several reasons. This interested me because of the location of the story and the background included in the tale.
The lead protagonist is a Māori woman who is a detective with the Auckland police force, which in turn has made her unwelcome with her extended family and tribe. The reasons for the latter are not shown upfront, but the details are spread over the first half. It also shows the effect it has on her marriage. Her daughter is going the other way, trying to stand up to the authorities and ensure that she has a voice for all the racial injustice that still lingers in their country today.
It is not a side of the story I have had the opportunity to read about before. It is the same but also not as the several different injustices that have occurred and continue to do so across the world. There are murders that a man has planned in order to bring forth an older injustice, and the people in charge fail to make the connections in time.
Hana has to contend with her daughter's emotions, as well as her ex's, while being the sole focus of the killer as the person to drop the hints to.
Although we hear the voice of the killer from the beginning, his personal story is not clear until the mid-way point. Loyalties are tested, and some very fine balancing is done by some people. It was a tough read, mostly because of the content and not because of the writing. I felt involved from the very beginning.
I would recommend this book to readers who like police prodecurals and want to try one in a different country.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Excellent police procedural set in Auckland. Hana is a Māori detective in charge of a case originating in the injustices of the colonial period. The mystery is filled with Māori lore and language.

“The dead man is naked, the captive stripped and humiliated before he was executed, retribution for having evaded the pursuing troop for a quite embarrassingly long period. As well as the rope around his neck, his hands are tied in front of his torso, his feet bound at the ankle. The man is Maori, and the tmoko tattooed on his face and body show the markings of a high-born leader.”

This book takes place 160 years after that lynching, which was captured in a daguerreotype. That event proves to have current ramifications in Auckland, New Zealand. The author of this police procedural invented a New Zealand tribe and its history, but the story he told of the continuing impact of British colonialism on New Zealand felt very real, and familiar. Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman is a Maori, who is accustomed to being accused of being a traitor to her tribe. Even her own daughter has trouble dealing with her mother’s past actions as a police officer. A new murder case again brings Hana into conflict with her heritage.

My favorite parts of this book were the descriptions of Maori history and customs. I am not a huge fan of serial killer books, but this one had a comprehensible killer. I hate it when the book explains it all away by making the killer “crazy”. I would read more by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Better the Blood introduces us to Māori Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman of the Auckland police. She is a single mother of a 17 year old daughter just beginning college and also embarking on a music career, singing angry songs in clubs and in the street. Hana’s former husband, Jaye, who is white, is also her boss at work. They have apparently developed a good relationship.

As the novel begins, Hana is in court where a young law student she arrested has been found guilty of drugging and raping a young Māori woman. Family influence results in probation only with no time to be served. Her day has this terrible start and then she receives an anonymous email with a video attached…focusing on one apartment in a derelict building. With her partner, Stan, she identifies the building and apartment and, eventually, the room which contains the body of a hanging man. This man’s death will be the start of a twisting and riveting police investigation that includes two centuries of New Zealand history, the brutal treatment of the Māori peoples by the English who arrived in the 18th century, their ongoing problems in the 21st century, and one who has taken the route of “utu”, where “a debt disappears only when balance is finally restored.” (loc 1104)

Bennett has included elements of Māori language, culture and history that adds to the intensity of this reading experience. When I finished, I wanted to find another book with these characters, or people like them, in this setting as soon as possible. I’ll be watching for more from Michael Bennett.


Thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I thought Better the Blood was fabulous and have been recommending it all over the place. I loved the premise, the characters, and the mystery. I very much hope it will be a series.

This excellent and engrossing debut thriller stars single mother/Māori Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman in Auckland, New Zealand's police department.

The story opens in 1863 when an artist crafts a daguerreotype of six British soldiers below a naked, hanged, high born Maori leader.

A serial killer sends videos of his victims to Hana., who finds a connection to the 1863 murder.

It becomes a race against time to stop more deaths, while danger draws ever closer to Hana's own circle.

I was so excited to get a copy of this book. The premise sounded so good. But after attempting both the digital and audio versions I realize I am the wrong reader for this book. I could not connect to the storyline or characters and reading/listening became a struggle.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic.

Unpopular opinion, but I just didn't care for this book. The only thing that saved from 1⭐ to 2⭐ was the last 30 minutes in the book. I have read Bennett's books before, but this one just didn't grab me. It was slow. I kept falling asleep, as I was trying to read it.
As I said, mine is an unpopular opinion. Others loved it and raved about it. Remember everyone reads a different book with the same title.

Published January 10, 2023

Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the Kindle Version of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

🙃 Happy Reading 🙃

#netgalley
#groveatlantic

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on January 10, 2023

The pattern of British colonialism is ugly. White colonists pronounce themselves superior to “uncivilized” natives. Using their superior firepower, they supplant indigenous people in the territories they colonize. In New Zealand, the Māori were a peaceful people who saw themselves as caretakers of land that belonged to all Māori collectively. The British took their land and punished Māori who resisted, sometimes by hanging them. Efforts to restore stolen land through the legal system, if successful at all, result in the restoration of about 2% of the stolen land to the Māori.

Set in Aukland, Better than Blood is a police thriller that tells a story grounded in cultural identity. Hana Westerman is a Māori. When she was a new police officer, her white superiors thought it would be smart to send her to the front line of a police effort to suppress a Māori protest. Hana knew the Māori had legitimate grievances and felt conflicted when she carted off an older woman as the Māori derided her for siding with the whites.

Years later, when she is in her thirties, Hana has the rank of Detective Senior with the Aukland CIB. Someone sends her a video from an anonymous proxy. When she investigates the abandoned house in the video, she discovers a dead body in a hidden room. The death is the first of a series. Each time, Hana receives a video that tells her where a body will be found.

This isn’t a whodunit. The reader knows that the killer is a Māori lawyer named Raki. Hana’s daughter Addison took a class that Raki was teaching. Raki avoids killing innocent people, but he has his own definition of innocence. Hana’s task is to find the thread that connects the victims. That task requires Hana to work harder than the reader. The opening scene provides at least a rough idea of how the victims might be related.

Better than Blood fails to develop sufficient tension to stand as a successful thriller, despite scenes that place Hana and her daughter at risk. An early subplot about an entitled young white guy who decides to mess up Hana’s life disappears soon after it surfaces. I could have lived without Raki’s revealing dreams of his mother (and his encounter with her in the afterlife), just as I can always live without descriptions of dreams (and the afterlife).

Still, any novel that calls attention to social injustice has value. Hana’s conflict between her ethnic identity and her service to a government that has long oppressed her people adds interest to her character, as does her ex-husband’s position as her boss. I appreciated the way the novel ends. And I like the message that injustice cannot be a tool that is wielded against injustice. While the novel lacks suspense, it tells an interesting story through a character whose personal journey is more compelling than the underlying plot.

RECOMMENDED

EXCERPT: A Smudge on the page of history - 5 October 1863

Below the tree, the six British soldiers face the lens in an aesthetically pleasing curving semicircle. Suspended above them, a few yards over their heads, secured to one of the lower branches of the great tree by a length of twelve strand British Army rope noosed tight around his throat, a seventh person forms the apex of this carefully considered composition.

The dead man is naked, the captive stripped and humiliated before he was executed, retribution for having evaded the pursuing troop for quite an embarrassingly long period. As well as the rope around his neck, his hands are tied in front of his torso, his feet bound at the ankle. The man is Māori, and the moko (a traditional way of Māori tattooing signifying status or social standing) tattooed on his face and body show the markings of a high-born leader. He is silver-haired, in his fifties, and the swirls and lines gouged deep into his skin tell a tale of his lineage, his status, the knowledge he carries, the whakapapa (genealogy, line of descent) passed down to him across the generations.

A rangitira, a chief of great stature.

ABOUT 'BETTER THE BLOOD': A DETECTIVE IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH

Hana Westerman is a tenacious Ma¯ori detective juggling single motherhood and the pressures of her career in Auckland’s Central Investigation Branch. When she’s led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man hanging in a secret room. As Hana and her team work to track down the killer, other deaths lead her to think that they are searching for New Zealand’s first serial killer.

A KILLER IN SEARCH OF RETRIBUTION

With little to go on, Hana must use all her experience as a police officer to try and find a motive to these apparently unrelated murders. What she eventually discovers is a link to an historic crime that leads back to the brutal bloody colonisation of New Zealand.

A CLASH BETWEEN CULTURE AND DUTY

When the pursuit becomes frighteningly personal, Hana realises that her heritage and knowledge are their only keys to finding the killer.

THE PAST NEVER TRULY STAYS BURIED

But as the murders continue, it seems that the killer's agenda of revenge may include Hana – and her family . . .

WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE OF PARADISE.

MY THOUGHTS: I really wanted to love this, being a fervent supporter of Australasian authors, but although I liked Better The Blood, I didn't love it.

I appreciated the history and the use of Te Reo (the Māori language) incorporated into the book, but I found it difficult to relate to any of the characters and it felt like the plot was secondary to the author's views on New Zealand racial issues.

Better The Blood looks at the impact of colonisation, the fallout of which still affects all New Zealanders today. I did sometimes feel that I was being lectured, something I don't appreciate in my fiction.

However, the message that violence is not the answer to our problems earned an extra half star.

I was lucky enough to receive both a digital and an audio ARC of Better the Blood and was able to switch back and forth between the two. However, I have to say that I greatly preferred the audiobook, ably narrated by Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are.

⭐⭐⭐.5

#BettertheBlood #NetGalley

I: @groveatlantic @recordedbooks

T: @groveatlantic @recordedbooks

#contemporaryfiction #crime #detectivefiction #historicalfaction #newzealandfiction

THE AUTHOR: Michael Bennett (Ngati Pikiao, Ngati Whakaue) is an award-winning New Zealand screenwriter and author whose films have been selected for numerous festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Toronto and New York. In 2008 Michael was the inaugural recipient of the Writers Award from the New Zealand Film Commission, and in 2005 he was awarded the British Council/New Zealand Writers Foundation Award. In 2011 Michael’s feature film Matariki won Best Feature Film Screenplay at the New Zealand Screenwriting Awards, and in 2013 he was awarded Best Documentary Screenplay for his documentary on the Teina Pora case, The Confessions of Prisoner T. He went on to publish In Dark Places in 2016, which won Best Non-Fiction Book at the Ngaio Marsh Awards and Best Biography/History at the Nga Kupu Ora Awards 2017. Michael lives in Auckland, New Zealand, and is Head of Screenwriting at South Seas Film School.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Grove Atlantic for the digital ARC and RB Media for the audio ARC of Better the Blood by Michael Bennett for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Wow, this was a really powerful book! It is set in New Zealand, which I liked, but with the addition of the weaving of Maori customs and culture throughout, it took the story to another level.

Hana is a Maori woman, and a police officer, which isn't always a comfortable place for her to be. It doesn't help that her ex works with her. She also has a teenage daughter who is coming into her own and questioning Hana's actions during an altercation some years earlier. What happened in Hana's past is connected to her current case. How that all plays out is the plot of this book.

There was a lot I didn't know about the colonisation of New Zealand and what that meant for the Maori. I have always admired Maori people for their strong culture and their ability to hold their own against the Pakeha but what I discovered via this book and some further reading really opened my eyes. As an Australian, I always thought that the Maori did better against the British invasion than our Indigenous people, but it seems that there were plenty of heinous things that occurred over the ditch too.

Anyway, great book, really great read.

5 stars from me.

I hope there is another book starring Hana Westerman!

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic.

The past intrudes! Crime Thriller!

An amazing tale blending modern day New Zealand, the past and the Treaty of Waitangi, with a spate of killings that puzzle Māori Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman.
During the investigation, somehow she finds a link between this death and the suicide of someone else a few days later. What the connection points are between the victims she has no idea, but as the situation escalates she is thrown back to her days as a young police officer being forced to break up a land rights rally at Mt Suffolk. Something she’s felt sorry about for years. When the investigation cuts close to home Hana is distressed and determined to fight through.
An amazing story with the past intruding on the present, carrying forward the notion of those of today being held responsible for the past. It seem the Māori tradition of rebalancing, of Utu, might be in play.

A Grove Atlantic ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher

Better the Blood is the new novel from award winning screenwriter, director, and author Michael Te Arawa Bennett. The opening of the novel is set in New Zealand in 1860. A group of British soldiers pose in front of the hanging corpse of a Māori man. The next scene takes us to modern day New Zealand and we meet Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman. Hana has used her own status as a Māori woman to convince another young Māori woman to testify against a young man who drugged and raped her. The case is a slam dunk and the young man is convicted. The sentencing is a horror show. The judge proceeds to do what we have seen many times in real life. He laments that this act of bad behavior has harmed this young man’s future as a lawyer and as an athlete. So he sentences the man to only a month of prison. Hana is horrified by the injustice. While she is fuming over the trial she gets a strange video emailed to her. The email is of a building exterior. She and her partner are able to identify the room and locate a hanged man. Since the man had been walled up after death it is obvious that it is foul play.

While looking into the murder she gets another video. She later realizes that this is the location where a suspicious suicide had occurred. Upon further investigation she establishes that this is a murder as well. While it is clear that there is a single killer, the methods differ as the victims have no clear connection at all. As if this is not enough trouble Hana is having trouble with her college age daughter who has become wrapped up in various indigenous rights movements as well as drugs and working as one of the regions top up and coming DJs. As Hana digs deeper into the case the bodies continue to pile up. She must confront issues with her own past and with the systemic racism that plagues New Zealand.

This novel is a great ride. It is fast paced with great characters and great writing. At its heart though it is more than just another murder mystery. It is a cry to deal with the injustices that the indigenous Māori people face in their own homeland still today. These issues are not at all dissimilar from those faced by Native Americans in the US and Canada. I know less than I would like about the history of New Zealand. I learned something here. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this book is that we in the English Speaking World have a lot still to answer for. Until we acknowledge and deal with the issues of the past they will continue to fester and sometimes turn to hate. Go on out and get this book today. You won’t regret it.

3.5 stars. Michael Bennett’s debut shows his promise but not yet the fulfillment of his potential. Better the Blood is an interesting book, more for the cultural context than for the story itself. Although violence is not spared it is more the slow pace of the unfolding plot that I found difficult to deal with. The plot itself is predictable and lacking in suspense. Bennett did a much better job developing the book’s characters, including the setting, which is really another important character. I have been to Auckland and so may have appreciated the book more than someone who is unfamiliar with this sprawling city filled with M ori culture.

A well done procedural with a terrific setting and an awesome protagonist in Hana. A senior detective in Auckland, she's tracking a vicious murderer who is sending her videos with clues to what he has done. And she's trying to keep her 16 year old daughter Addison safe, mentor her partner Stanley, and keep her relationship with her ex Jaye, who happens to be her boss, on balance. Woven throughout this and key to the story are issues of importance to the Ma ori- and how Hana is seen by her own community as a result of her actions during a protect 15 years ago. There's a cat and mouse game here which will pull you in. And even if you think this is just another serial killer story, it's not- it's more. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Great read- I learned a lot- and here's hoping we see Hana again.