REVIEW

DEATH ON DEMAND, Paul Thomas

Reviewed By
Karen Chisholm

DEATH ON DEMAND came out in 2012 and it is impossible not to question sanity. It sat in my reading queue for over a year before daylight finally dawned.

Needless to say a lot of other worthy books were swept aside, because it's nearly impossible not to love these books. Partly because Tito is such a believable character - even as cop turned vigilante. Actually Ihaka as a vigilante almost sounds right. He's a man with a finally developed sense of justice and a rather ruthless attitude to providing same. 

There is a strong sense of place built into these books, and a strong sense of Ihaka as a man, cop and part of the community. The plots are cleverly constructed and beautifully executed with sufficient focus on the man as well as the cop to give him some depth without taking focus from the plot advancement or even the surrounding character set.

Hopefully there will be more Ihaka books in the future - they are must purchase even if the reading bit sometimes gets a little bit disorganised.

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
Author
ISBN
9781869712334
Year of Publication
Series
Book Number (in series)
4
BLURB

After 15 years, New Zealand's leading crime writer, Paul Thomas is back with another Ihaka blockbuster - all three previous books were huge sellers, with Old School Tie winning Australia's prestigious Ned Kelly Award for crime writing.

These days Maori cop Tito Ihaka is leading a quieter life in the Wairarapa. Five years earlier he'd sought to step into the shoes of his long-time boss Detective Inspector Finbar McGrail after the latter's promotion to Auckland District Commander. Dogged by the fall-out from his handling of the hit and run death of a prominent businesswoman, Ihaka was overlooked for a younger, more presentable candidate. After a men's room confrontation with his new boss's right-hand man, Ihaka was sent into exile.

Out of the blue McGrail summons him back to Auckland. Christopher Lilywhite, the businesswoman's terminally ill husband whom Ihaka suspected was behind his wife's death, wants to see him. Lilywhite confesses that he had his wife murdered, but he dealt with the hit-man at arm's length so has no idea who he is. In quick succession Lilywhite and another potential source of information are murdered. Ihaka's old rival Detective Inspector Tony Charlton takes control of the case but with more corpses turning up and Auckland Central stretched to breaking point, he agrees to let Ihaka investigate the apparently unrelated murder of a young man about town.

As the investigations expand uncovering a blackmail operation preying on married women, gang activities controlled from inside Paremeremo prison and possible police corruption, Ihaka realises that the cases are related and he's hunting a faceless and prolific hit-man. Or is the hit-man hunting him?

Review DEATH ON DEMAND, Paul Thomas
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Blog CR - Death on Demand, Paul Thomas
Karen Chisholm
Saturday, July 20, 2013

Add new comment

This is a book review site, with no relationship whatsoever with any of the authors mentioned here.

We do not provide a method for you to contact authors for any reason and comments of this nature are automatically deleted.

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.