This book was an unexpected surprise for me. I really wasn't expecting it to go where it went, I think the child on the cover fooled me and when it turned out to be about gangs, kidnappings and a tenacious clerk from a rural police station I was a little flummoxed. In a good way. Set in Masterton, a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, where your mistakes are discussed and where Lorraine (Lo) does the filing and knows where all the secrets are buried, at the local cop shop. Lo's concerned, kids are disappearing and suddenly her niece who is hanging out with a bad element is starting to behave oddly, and then her little boy, a cherub that Lo is very fond of, goes missing too. She is horrified, and particularly horrified that the police seem to be unengaged from this situation, blaming the parents, not trying hard enough to find the kids and being generally slack. Until the young detective from Wellington arrives. He befriends Lo and despite the fact that she's been put on leave for kicking up a fuss, he is there to sort this situation out.

The action ebbs and flows and as the situation gets more and more dangerous you begin to sit up and pay attention and fear for Lo and her companion. It gets very creepy and downright dangerous.

This is a great book with good pace and I'd like to thank Text Publishing and NetGalley for giving me access to it.

I don't normally enjoy a lot of New Zealand fiction as I struggle with it as it sometimes tends to be long-winded and dry, a bit like the UK fiction - slow-paced and too many details. However, with Paper Cage, I found myself getting really into it and I think a lot of that was because I lived in the Wairarapa where the book was set when I was younger and it brought back lots of happy memories. Also growing up, we have lived in the lower-income parts of the neighborhoods and known patched members, so I could relate to the story. Paper Cage introduces us to Lorraine who works for the local police as the records clerk which I love as I do a similar job for the council and this sounds right up my alley this job. In this book, young children from lower-income / gang families have gone missing and there are no leads. The police are looking at this as gang turf crimes, but Lorraine knows there has to be more than this and so after she is put on administrative lead - she sets out to do her investigations especially when her grand-nephew Bradley is the latest child to go missing. What will Lorraine find when she learns the truth about the kidnapper? In a way, I understood what the kidnapper's intentions were and he was an Anti-villain. The reveal of his name also made me smile as I had a teacher at Martinborough school and also went to school with a family from Featherston with the same surname. I am looking forward to seeing what else Tom Baragwanath releases as if it's as good as Paper Cage, it will be added to my reading lists. If you love New Zealand Crime Writers and books set here on our shores, then check out Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath as you won't be disappointed.

A small town riddled with social problems, from poverty to drugs and gang violence, and amongst it all is Aunty Lo, not your average protagonist, but one with gusto and a heart bigger than her town.
When Lo’s grand nephew is the latest child to go missing in Masterton, she decides to take matters further into her own hands. When she has the help of an out of town cop (we love Justin too!) who just wants answers and isn’t getting them from the local police, she finds herself in more danger than she anticipated but will do whatever needs to be done to find her nephew and the other missing kids.

The social commentary on social, family and race issues is threaded throughout the book with a surface level look into the white saviour complex. And gosh I think we’ve found a guy that can write a great female protagonist!

What a cracker of a debut! I can’t wait to read more from Tom Barangwanath.

An excellent New Zealand crime/thriller set in a small community. Two children have gone missing and then the nephew of Lorraine, the files clerk at the local police station is also taken. It’s well told, and I was drawn into the book by the attention to detail with regards to the characters and the nature and attitudes of the small town, especially race, class, gangs, drugs, family relationships and education. A great read.

I initially struggled with this because I found the beginning to be a bit bland as I couldn't follow the story it seemed like it had started in the middle. It did pick up in the middle though and I became engrossed in the mystery. I would really like to read more by this author as I think he has potential to be a great mystery/thriller writer. Overall apart from the beginning of the book I really enjoyed this one. Thank you netgalley and the publisher for this ARC all opinions are solely my own.

Tom Baragwanath is a New Zealand-born writer living in Paris. I mentioned recently (in my review of the anthology, Dark Deeds Down Under) I don't read a lot of NZ authors so wonder if that's why I was occasionally a little lost here with some terminology.

It's often the case when I read French, Italian or Nordic crime fiction as I really (really) don't understand their law enforcement hierarchy but here - weirdly (given our proximity to our good friends across the ditch) I found myself confused by phrases and colloquialisms.

Embarrassingly when starting this book I assumed ‘patched’ meant that one of the characters had some sort of trendy beard-like growth on his chin. However I gather it means that person is / was ‘connected’ or a member of a gang.

Ostensibly this is about the disappearance of several children, but in many ways it plays a backseat to simmering race relations, exacerbated by gang-related violence and a drug and alcohol-fuelled suburban culture much of which is led (here) by Keith - the partner of Lorraine's niece Sheena and father of Lorraine's beloved great-nephew, Bradley.

In fact the investigation gets derailed (and precious time lost) after the disappearance of Bradley, by Sheena wanting to protect Keith's drug-dealing and I understood Lorraine's frustration with her niece who put her partner (and his illegal activities) before her own son.

I was a little lost in some of the intricacies here. There are references to 'them' and 'us' and not always when discussing race. The book is set in Bardgwanath's own hometown of Masterson, which I assumed to be a fairly small town in New Zealand. Lorraine doesn't really seem to fit in anywhere. I was unsure initially if she was Maori as her police colleagues treat her poorly and not only because she's 'just' the records clerk and lives on the wrong side of town. However similarly she's viewed as an outsider by Sheena's friends and Keith.

I liked that visiting cop Hayes recognises that Lorraine has a lot to offer - in terms of her knowledge of the players and community and appreciates that insight... overruling Lorraine's boss to have her involved.

I very much enjoyed Bardgwanath's comfortable prose and ease of his storytelling. The kidnappings seemed to become a little diluted amongst the rubble here, but perhaps that's what Baragwanath is going for - reflecting that police can't focus on important issues within the community because of the swirling underbelly found in both large and small communities.

The issue of race and way we perceive or judge others underpins this novel. I could see that Baragwanath had a point he was trying to make but (ultimately) unsure the commentary comes full-circle and offers any resolution (which again however... probably reflects real-life!).

3.5 stars

A small town, a missing child (or two!), a community in fear. This book has you on the edge of your seat.

This is a book that tells a story we have all heard before, a person (Lo) has information and answers to questions that need answering but noone is listening. A newcomer (Hayes) wants those answers before it is too late.

This is a thriller, with so much intrigue, so many questions, so much mystery. It is a book that brings crime and tragedy to the everyday lives of those in this small town in New Zealand. It is gritty, it is thrilling, it is nail-biting. It is a book you want to read.

Highly recommend this book to lovers of crime, mystery and thrillers as it has it all.

"The air is thick with the tang of mutton, a salty musk that lingers high in the nose." Tom Baragwanath has lovely descriptive writing that swirls around the action in his first crime thriller. It's set in the town of Masterton in New Zealand, where the author grew up. The lead protagonist is Lorraine Henry—Aunty Lo—a records clerk at the local police station. The station is being flummoxed by a series of missing kids: "You can ignore one missing kid if you try hard enough. But two? Two's something else. Even with names like Precious and Hēmi, two gets attention." When her nephew, Bradley, joins the list of the missing, the struggles to find them gets personal.

"The mirror shows new grey at my temples, and my cheeks look like last week's bread forgotten in the bag." Lorraine is an unlikely hero, widowed by an accident to her husband Frank. She's Pākehā, he was Māori. Nobody's rich. The town has a swathe of social problems, from poverty to drugs and other gang-related crime: "the threat of violence hangs over the streets like the low hum of electricity." Is it a fit place to raise children is the novel's gently asked premise. I'll leave you to find out in this worthwhile and wonderfully different novel about New Zealand and the people who inhabit it. I very much enjoyed reading Paper Cage over four (too fast) nights, and would happily pick up another Tom Baragwanath book.