Dunedin

Detective Sam Shephard is back, promoted (no longer a Detective Constable), working in the same squad as boyfriend Paul and still in head on confrontation with the boss, and slightly off centre confrontation with her mother.  Which is particularly difficult as in BOUND Sam's much loved father is dying, just as the case of a brutal home invasion takes most of Sam's attention and energy.

There are some absolute givens in the Sam Shephard series.  There's going to be an opening to the book which should have the reader paying attention.  Sam is going to be part energiser bunny, part her own worst critic. Whilst the focus of the books remains on Sam, as the narrator of the action, there's always a good supporting cast, and there's invariably an unusual and somehow quintessentially small town plot.  In this case, after a violent home invasion in which a man is shot dead in front of his wife, Sam is initially given the job of liaison with and supporting the wife, who was injured in the attack.  It's a difficult enough job for somebody who has the sort of mind that doesn't rest and isn't particularly comfortable dealing with raw and very exposed grief and personal retribution - particularly as the couple's teenage son arrived home to find the carnage inflicted on his family.

The complication in this book is that all the while that Sam is working this case, which is, after all a family being forced apart, she has her own family problems with her father succumbing rapidly to cancer.  Sam's own relationship with her mother has always been complicated, but the rawness of the grief and suffering of her father makes that relationship even more a minefield, and it's clear that Sam's increasing desire to get more and more into the details of the home invasion case are partially as a way of avoiding the constant confrontation.  There's also more turmoil in Sam's personal life that she has to deal with.

Sam is undoubtedly one of my favourite fictional characters.  I really like the way that her internal dialogue runs, I like the way she is her most strident critic, and I love the way she's always prepared to leap in where wiser heads might prefer not to tread.  I really really liked the way that in BOUND she finally stands up to her bullying boss, I thought the way that she tiptoed around her relationship difficulties with her mother was beautifully done.

BOUND is, however, probably not my favourite book of this series, and it took me quite a while to work out why.  I suspect it's a combination of a few things.  Firstly, this time there was a considerably more predictable plot and an extremely predictable personal complication.  To be fair though, the who and the why of the plot weren't that hard to pick, so having the how of the various threads less obvious did compensate.  Secondly, a decidedly lesser showing of Sam's wonderful housemate and voice of reason Maggie didn't help, undoubtedly because she's such a great character but mostly because she works very well as a foil for Sam's more angst-ridden internal monologues.  Finally it's also that the mostly personal twists at the end of the book again weren't that hard to pick, and in one case, there was a sort of coyness that seemed a step too far for Sam's personality type.

All of this simply means that out of the entire Sam Shephard series, BOUND wasn't my absolute favourite book.  They are, however, one of my all time favourite series, so despite promises to myself that I'd be hoarding this book until the next was on the way (I believe Symons is working on a stand-alone next up), I've now read it and I'm back in that desperately sad situation of waiting impatiently for the next book.  Things could get really desperate .... may have to re-read the series from scratch!

CONTAINMENT is the third in the Sam Shephard series from New Zealand writer Vanda Symon.  It's rapidly stepped up to be one of my all time favourite series for a whole bunch of reasons.

Firstly these are truly humorous books.  Subtly, ever so slightly tongue in cheek, the humour is both self-deprecating and tension alleviating.  My favourite sort.  Sam's voice is particularly appealing - as she busily beats herself up mentally, leaving the physical assault to the scavengers on the beach in the case of CONTAINMENT.  As mentioned in earlier reviews - because the books are told from Sam's point of view, her self-deprecation and self-analysis is part of what alleviates any sense of myopia or self-servitude that can sometimes occur with that viewpoint.

Secondly they are solid, believable, twisty and nicely complex plots.  They are particularly believable and realistic in the setting in which the action takes place.  Symon's small town or country New Zealand is a place where the crimes, the perpetrators, the cops and the victims all fit perfectly.  Often the action starts out small-time and stays that way, in other cases things escalate rapidly, frequently slightly out of control and mostly inexplicably until everything just explodes around the cops and perpetrators ears!   

Lastly, but not least of all, there are great characters in these books.  The stand out is obviously Sam Shephard herself.  The country cop who has moved to the bigger city, but not lost that practical, self-deprecating, country sensibility.  Her awareness (and willingness to beat herself up) for her shortcomings, her understanding and forgiveness and care for those who surround her is .. here's those words again .. realistic and believable.  Sam is definitely the sort of cop that you can well imagine running into at a crime scene, at the pub, in a hospital bed.  Because she is a little accident prone.  Mostly because of enthusiasm and concern for the job, partially because of a stubborn refusal to think things through totally, Sam spends more than a bit of time in her own physical or mental wars.  Just to add to the mix, the course of true love gets smacked around the head pretty regularly by Sam, and the bosom of her loving family has it's own twists and turns.

Whilst Sam is definitely the star of her own show in these books, the supporting cast isn't one dimensional or off-camera.  Her interactions with the other cops in her team, her boss, her parents, cop boyfriend and best friend Maggie are very good.  Particularly her relationship with friend, flatmate and voice of reason Maggie.  It's actually a fantastic element of these books - to have a strong, supportive and brutally honest relationship between two women drawn so clearly is a relatively rare occurrence, and it's done extremely well in these books - although Maggie is possibly slightly less present in CONTAINMENT than I recall her in the earlier books.

For all the gushing of this review, these books aren't just light-hearted entertainment.  There are often elements in the plots which are unexpected, unpleasant even - characters that are expendable, deaths that are confrontational or emotional.  The light-hearted touch of Symon doesn't conceal the reality of criminal activity, murder or mayhem.  It just makes the lesson slightly more palatable. 

A YEAR TO LEARN A WOMAN is the second novel and first crime fiction offering from New Zealand writer Paddy Richardson.  Travis Crill is a serial rapist - convicted and jailed for a series of bizarre attacks.  Claire Wright is a freelance journalist, living alone with her young daughter after the sudden death of her older husband.  When Claire is first contacted to see if she would be interested in writing the story of Crill for a very much needed large sum of money, she finds she can quickly overcome her initial reluctance to look closely at a man like him.  But understanding Crill's story means that Claire must also look closely at the impact of his crimes on his victims and she gradually comes to realise that, despite being in jail and not in regular contact with Claire, Crill seems strangely to be in control.

A YEAR TO LEARN A WOMAN is broken down into a series of chapters from various characters viewpoints - Claire, her daughter Annie and many of Crill's victims.  There are also scattered chapters written from Crill's own viewpoint.  It seemed that this styling is what makes this a very disquieting book.  Being inside the heads of the victim's is a sobering experience.  Interspersing that with the normal daily life of Claire and Annie, moving backwards in time to when Annie was a baby, and into the current with Annie a teenager, and Claire - firstly trying to decide if she is willing to take the commission to write Crill's story, and then working through the research required to start the book.  

One of the factors that most interests Claire is that Crill doesn't really have a classic rapist profile (if there is such a thing).  His attacks are yearly - and he uses that year to stalk and "learn" his victims.  He seems less motivated by the need for power and control and more by a need for love and acceptance.  He seems to come from a very stable family background, he holds down a job, is a very attractive man.  His crimes are terrifying, but odd, sad, very strange.  It's possibly this dichotomy of character that interests Claire, that draws her into the story.  Crill doesn't seem that threatening.  

A YEAR TO LEARN A WOMAN is one of those deceptively creepy, sneaky, slow building tense books, that frankly is extremely discomforting to read.  The story moves from the mundane, to the discomforting, from the research to the reality of dealing with a serial criminal very deftly.  There is a rapid build up at the end and a resolution which, whilst there is a point at which you can start to see it coming, is still frightening and sobering.  It's not often that a crime fiction book makes you want to leave the lights on.  A YEAR TO LEARN A WOMAN did that and made me want to wait to finish it until I was sure I wasn't home alone!