Having just posted a media announcement on the 2018 Ngaio Marsh longlist (the media announcement is here), now for a few personal comments. Firstly and most importantly, if you've been standing by waiting for a review to be posted (especially if your book was in the submissions list), this is the reason for the delay.
This year 69 submissions were made to the New Zealand Crime Writing awards and that's a LOT of reading. Plus it's not really fair to be posting comments / reviews up front when there is much discussion, consideration, rethinking, comparing and contrasting going on in the background. Which focus, needless to say, is now being switched to the longlist entries - all of which now need to be reread, considered, contrasted, stared at, notes made about, opinions formed, changed and generally agonised over before sending my conclusions out to the Judging Wrangler Craig Sisterson and waiting like everybody else for the final conclusions to be collated.
I will admit that when the size of the submissions list first appears it is a little daunting. There's a lot of books to be read in the first pass, but it quickly becomes less of a task and more of a joy as you rapidly come to realise the sheer breadth and depth in that stack. The variety is enormous, there's an increasing sense of multi-cultural celebration and bravery in many of the books being submitted. It's an exciting feeling - staring at this huge, teetering, cat endangering pile of books and wondering what little treasures will be lurking. And the joy when you open something, start reading and think, oh boy. Oh wow. Oh yes.
So heartiest congratulations to absolutely everybody who submitted their books to the awards this year. It was another rewarding year and here's hoping there are a lot more of them.
Their Taonga: Ngai Tahu’s ancient and sacred treasure. Everybody covets it. When it is stolen, the ancestors start wreaking havoc. The curse destroys people’s lives. Boats are overturned, babies die at birth, throats are slit. It must be returned to appease the ancestors. It has drawn Countess Margarita Szechnyi and Boyland the Collector, otherwise known as the Butcher of Warsaw, together into a web of murder, intrigue, love and deceit. Inspector O’Rorke is pushed into the case, along with his good friend Colonel Henry Jamieson and Henare Greaves as they attempt to return the Taonga to its rightful place. Starting in the secret caves of Murihiku in New Zealand’s South Island in 1883, then travelling to South America, on to London, then over to the Greek Isles, this book keeps the reader intrigued right through to the gripping climax. This is the sixth in Edmund Bohan’s gripping series of Inspector O’Rorke novels.
When an innocent family is taken hostage in their home no one is ready for how fast it all goes terribly wrong. As the close knit community of small town Lawrence reels from the shock, detectives Nick Cooper and Tobe White stand among the dead bodies knowing that it’s not over. Because while grateful that at least the two young daughters survived unscathed, they now know that their father is still missing, somehow impossibly vanishing from a house surrounded by police. The mystery deepens as Nick and Tobe realize that they know every gunman lying dead here – because up to last night they were the leaders of the biggest criminal gang in the country. As the desperate search and rescue mission starts it soon collides with their own challenging investigation leading them into the centre of a deeper, older tragedy. Where they begin to learn just how far someone will go for those he truly, dearly hates.
For Detective Matt Buchanan, the world is a pretty sick place. He has probably been in the job too long, for one thing. And then there’s 14-year-old Samantha Coates, and the other unsolved murder cases. Those innocent girls he just can’t get out of his head. When Buchanan pursues some fresh leads, it soon becomes clear he’s on the trail of something big. As he pieces the horrific crimes together, Buchanan finds the very foundations of everything he once believed in start to crumble. He’s forced across that grey line that separates right and wrong – into places so dark, even he might not make it back.