Sam Shephard

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. 

THE RINGMASTER is the second in the Sam Shephard series from NZ author Vanda Symon.  Sam has moved to Dunedin, is in detective training when the body of a young university student is found in the Botanic Gardens.  In Sam's world it goes without saying that nothing is ever going to be straightforward, and once the possibility that this murder isn't a solitary event, the connection between murders all over the Southern South Island of New Zealand and a local travelling circus becomes a distinct possibility.

Which, as it does, leads to a sympathetic relationship with an elephant.  Which ends badly.  So maybe I should get this out of the way up front, things for the elephant don't end well at all, and  Sam is just as upset about this outcome as the reader is going to be.  But that isn't going to help readers who are completely opposed to anything bad happening to animals.  For me, the events, whilst distressing, really demonstrated how sometimes the life of the police isn't a pleasant one.  But getting back to the murder investigation, there are aspects of Sam's personality (and personal life) that have come forward from the first book - OVERKILL.  There are also aspects of the investigation that remain the same.  Sam plays a solo hand again, partly because she's sidelined in a major way by the same bosses that tried to sideline her in the first book, and partly because Sam's much more comfortable out on the edge, playing a solo hand.  It's probably that sense that somewhere off in the rough is exactly where Sam is at her best that stops any sense of cliché or convenient repetition.  That and the humour, but more on that later.

As with OVERKILL, the great strength in THE RINGMASTER is the characterisations.  Using the same tricks as the earlier book, Sam really is easy to identify with.  Her own self doubt, her willingness to feel real emotion, make mistakes, beat herself up, be jealous, angry, daft as a brush, brave, sad and rather clever all at the same time.

There is another great supporting set of characters in THE RINGMASTER.  Maggie remains, housemate, and best friend, Sam's touchstone.  They are now both living in Dunedin, boarding with relatives of Maggie's, their domestic situation seemingly sorted, Sam's emotional life is still a massive rollercoaster.  There is a love interest bought forward from the first book, although it takes quite a while for Sam to twig that this is a love interest, and not just some bloke hanging around being annoying.  There is also a great sense of place and sensibility.  The book doesn't read as a travelogue, but you really do come away from it with an unscratchable itch to see that place, meet those people.

As with the first book, the humour is pitched perfectly.  At no stage is the reader allowed to forget that there are victims involved in any series of murders, there are unwitting involvements that impact everyone as a result, and there are the guilty that have their own, often inexplicable reasons, for doing what they do.  CONTAINMENT is the next book in the series, followed by recent release BOUND.  Do you think it's too much to hope that now that I'm revisiting the first three books, and have the fourth to look forward to, that a fifth isn't that far away?

We've got this little dog... Jedda is a 3 year old Australian terrier female.  She's short, red-golden haired, extremely independent, determined to the point of obsession, friendly but can switch quickly into extreme bolshie and she is absolutely and utterly incapable of stepping away from an argument.  She's the sort of dog that will continue the fight after she's been physically picked up and carried away from the conflict point.  I suspect if I'd read OVERKILL before we'd got that dog, there would have been a strong case put for naming her Sam.

OVERKILL is written from Sam's viewpoint.  Which is a tricky approach as the reader is going to have to like Sam, or at least feel some sense of connection with her, and be comfortable that Sam is fairly investigating this death.  Which is complicated because the grief-stricken widower is Sam's ex-lover.  Somebody that you'd have to be dead or thick not have noticed Sam still holds quite a torch for.  That, and some really ... well let's go with naive rather than stupid actions, means it's not a big step for the powers that be to suspend Sam from the investigation because she's made herself more than suspicious.  Perhaps a little unfairly as it was Sam that first wonders if this death wasn't more than a tragic suicide and it's her sniffing around that finds the forged prescription that triggers the murder enquiry in the first place.

Needless to say, a piddling little technicality like "suspicion" and "suspended" isn't going to stop Sam, anymore than a cow manure shampoo or a few stitches in the head.   (And that's got to be one of the funniest scenes I've read in years - thinking about it still made me cry with laughter when we were changing our own ute tyre the other day!)

Whilst there's always the exception to the rule, in the main there are some elements that are kind of expected in some forms of Crime Fiction.  With your cop protagonist it doesn't hurt that they are a bit of a self-starter.  It works well if there's conflict with higher authorities, and suspension allows your cop to head off into somewhat tricky "procedural" territory.  There's really nothing wrong with using some formulaic elements in a book provided that they aren't one-dimensional and there's enough other elements for a reader to identify with to allow you to forgive the occasional blatant setup.  Where OVERKILL compensates in spades is in the main characters.  Sam and her best friend, housemate Maggie are a good pairing - whilst Maggie takes no active part in the investigation part of the novel, she's the calm in Sam's chaos.  And the affection, sarcasm, pithy commentary and observations between the two of them are frequently very very touching and funny.

Part of what I really liked about these books was that sense of humour.  Frequently self-deprecating, the humorous touches are part of what makes the first-person voice work.  At no stage is Sam overbearingly smug or self-serving.  She's flawed and human and probably harder on herself than anybody around her could ever hope to be.  OVERKILL is the first book in what is now a 4 book series, and having read the next two before I went back to re-read this one, I can see the developmental elements in this debut.  Every series, after all, has to start somewhere and there's nothing worse than a debut book that says and does it all.  Sam has places to go, people to annoy, problems to solve, ladders to climb, snakes to slide back down again.  You just have to hope that 4 books isn't the end and there's a lot more of Sam in the future.  (Expect a flurry of these reviews - I've been slack and need to catch up with talking about this terrific series!)