Criminal lineup: rounding up this year’s Ngaio Marsh contenders
WATCH: the Ngaio Marsh longlist video
Suspense is building … the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards longlist was released late last month (more here).
While we wait for the awards themselves, we’ve rounded up reviews here on Kete, and a few other articles elsewhere too, to give you suspect profiles for the fourteen longlisted books.
Too Far From Antibes by Bede Scott (Penguin SEA)
Read a ‘How I Write’ piece on Stuff from the author of Too Far From Antibes, a retro thriller in the style of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, set in 1950s Saigon.
Exit .45 by Ben Sanders (Allen & Unwin)
‘Razor-sharp prose … and one of the weirdest death scenes in recent memory.’
Take a look at Greg Fleming’s Kete review of Auckland based Ben Sanders’ New York thriller.
Remember Me by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
‘Charity Norman,’ writes Greg Fleming, ‘is one of our best kept literary secrets…’ more here on Kete. Norman’s protagonist, Emily Kirkland returns home to care for her father who suffers from dementia. As her father’s memory fades, his guard slips and Emily begins to understand her father for the first time—and to glimpse shattering truths about his past.
Read The Spinoff’s backstory piece, diving into the story that inspired the book here.
Blue Hotel by Chad Taylor (Brio Books)
On his Kiwi Crime blog, Ngaio Marsh founder Craig Sisterson commends Blue Hotel as a ‘dark and funny tale set among the excesses and economic crashes of the late 1980s.’
More here.
Poor People with Money by Dominic Hoey (Penguin)
‘Monday Woolridge is broke. Her friends are broke. Her family is broke. And everything is inexorably turning to the proverbial...’ writes Ruth Spencer on Kete of Dominic Hoey’s Poor People with Money. Spencer’s assessment? ‘A breathless, desperate sort of ride. It has brutality and grit but also deep undercurrents of beauty.’ It’s also, she writes ‘viciously funny’.
Read the full review.
The Darkest Sin by DV Bishop (Macmillan)
Alyson Baker writes this is ‘the second outing for Aldo … those familiar with his first, City of Vengeance, will recognise many of the characters, including stinking, cruel, and treacherous early 1500s Florence.’ She reviews The Darkest Sin on the Nelson Public Libraries site. The book, Baker writes is ‘enlivened by the conflicts of the time,’ and characters and their concerns are well-drawn creating an ‘excellent murder mystery.’
You can also read an interview with author D.V Bishop on the nzbooklovers site here.
The Doctor’s Wife by Fiona Sussman (Bateman Books)
On Kete Jessie Neilson writes the The Doctor’s Wife is a ‘superb crime novel by South African-born writer and former doctor Fiona Sussman.’ ‘A world of restrained mannerisms with behaviour set to implode…’
Read the full review.
Miracle by Jennifer Lane
‘Miracle Jamieson is negotiating being a teenager in small town Boorunga. She worries about her freckles, pines after her first love, Oli, and puts up with the school bullies … Jennifer Lane gives us great mystery storytelling from the point of view of a young woman…’ writes Alyson Baker on the Nelson Public Libraries site.
Better the Blood by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)
Better the Blood was also shortlisted for the 2023 Jan Medlicott Award for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. On Kete, Greg Fleming describes the books as exploring ‘the knotty issues of injustice and race’. He writes, ‘It’s an Auckland-set story that revolves around a Māori detective Hana Westerman. Hana’s dedication and innate smarts mean she’s risen quickly through the ranks but she has never truly reconciled her cultural identity with the duties of the job…. It’s a moving, timely and powerful thriller that brings to life a crime story deeply embedded in our history.’
Read the full review.
In her Blood by Nikki Crutchley (HarperCollins)
On the Nelson Public Libraries site, Alyson Baker notes that when it comes to great settings, hotels really lend themselves to the murder-mystery ambience .. she points to ‘corridors with lots of rooms, lots of creaky staircases, lots of people passing through over many years leaving stories and ghosts, and lots of places to hide bodies.’ Baker writes that author Nikki Crutchley uses the small town hotel setting (near Waitomo Caves) in In her Blood to great effect.
Read the review.
Read a Stuff interview with Nikki Crutchley ‘Crime writer Nikki Crutchley picks her favourite true crime podcast.’
The Pain Tourist by Paul Cleave (Upstart Press)
Reviewer Greg Fleming hopes that the latest from internationally acclaimed crime writer Paul Cleve will bring him more of the recognition he deserves at home in Aotearoa New Zealand. Fleming writes The Pain Tourist ‘has many of the Cleave trademarks fans have come to love: flashes of violence, a twist-laden narrative and elements of the supernatural a la Stephen King. Pain tourists are “people who revel in the misery of others” — and that’s an understatement.’
Read the review
Blood Matters by Renée (The Cuba Press)
On Kete, Jessie Neilson reviews Blood Matters writing, ‘this is the second crime novel by renowned playwright, novelist and short story writer Renée. Like her debut, The Wild Card, which was a Ngaio Marsh finalist, it is set in Porohiwi. The gentle pace of life has again been disrupted; insidious forces lurk in the streets. Lockdown has just ended and it is a time of transition and re-establishing relations — or not.’ It is writes Neilson, ‘vivaciously told.’
Read the review
The Slow Roll by Simon Lendrum (Upstart Press)
Here on Kete, Greg Fleming writes, ‘The Slow Roll’s O’Malley isn’t your normal private eye. He doesn’t have an office or even PI license; he’s spent time in prison and makes his living playing poker. But if you ask around certain circles in Auckland, this rather large part Irish, part Polynesian “pretend detective” is the man to contact if the police, for whatever reason, won’t help…’
Fleming’s assessment? ‘Lendrum’s sharp, wry prose hooks readers in from the start, introducing some meaty social issues into the narrative – family violence, trauma, Aotearoa New Zealand’s social inequity — without slowing the pace.’
Read the full review.
Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath (Text Publishing)
Baragwanath’s debut is set ‘in Masterton – a town where “half the families… have some sort of [gang] connection, and the threat of violence hangs over the streets like the low hum of electricity.”’ writes Greg Fleming.
Paper Cage he says is ‘a tightly written, slow burning thriller that relies less on action (though a car chase through one-way forestry tracks is a memorable exception) than a gradual revealing of character and community.
Read the full review on Kete.