Carved in Blood by Michael Bennett

Carved in Blood is the third in Michael Bennett’s New Zealand crime fiction series centred around Māori detective Hana Westerman. Hana quit the police after events in the first book Better the Blood but she is involved in an investigation in her home community in the follow up Return to Blood. Hana is brought back into the police in Carved in Blood to help investigate a shooting that is too close to home.

The opening chapter of Carved in Blood is a bit of a statement of intent from Bennet. The opening takes readers to a local community celebration. The community is marking the achievements of their young adults, who Hana has taught how to drive. Bennet is clear to show the benefits to the next generation of being able to find work outside of their community. At the same time, Hana’s daughter announces that she is going to become engaged to her partner and sets a propitious time for the engagement party. But this introduction also serves to remind readers of the dangers that lurk in the community, already hinted at in the previous book, in the form of Erwin Rendall, a local drug runner who is luring young locals into crime.

Hana’s life is thrown into disarray when her ex-husband Jaye is shot in an apparent liquor store robbery. Hana demands to be brought in to the investigation which starts to focus on a young Māori man, Toa Davis, who was running drugs for a local Chinese organised crime outfit. Although, very soon, it feels to Hana like not everything is adding up. Readers will already be clued into this as Bennett adds in some point of view chapters that chart the development of a very disturbed and disturbing individual with the implication that they will be somehow involved.

Hana is once again an interesting, complex, highly competent investigator. And she is ably supported by a range of well drawn side characters all working through issues of their own. This includes her new flame Sebastian, daughter Addison and Hana’s former partner Stan who is trying to come back from a serious injury and get back into active duty. The only really cliched aspect comes in the form of the point-of-view villain chapters which have been done before by plenty of other authors and always sound the same. This book would probably have been stronger without them.

Overall, though, Carved in Blood is another great multilayered procedural from Bennett. While this investigation has a very personal angle it also challenges Hana in the way in which the main suspect is considered and treated. And, following from the first chapter, like the previous books in this series, the story and characters are heavily informed by Māori culture, history and community dynamics. This aspect not only makes the story much deeper but sets this series apart from more straight forward procedurals. By the end of this book Hana is back in the police force so it is likely we will be seeing more of her (and her extended family and friends) and this can only be a good thing for the Southern Cross crime fiction scene.

Carved in Blood by Michael Bennett

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8.0/10