Karen Chisholm
REVIEW
A Cold Wind Down the Grey, Wendy M. Wilson
Reviewed By
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
A COLD WIND DOWN THE GREY is a novel based on a true crime story from the days of early white settlement in New Zealand. As per the blurb opening: Greymouth, New Zealand, 1866: The Burgess gang is heading towards town, and a young surveyor from one of the country's leading families has vanished. Inspector James is preparing for trouble.
Greymouth is a gold-mining town, constantly inundated by flooding, and somewhat over-supplied by pubs - 57 in a year sprang into being, accommodating hordes of miners, alongside a hefty number of gold thieves and general drunks and craziness. In those days, Inspector William Henry James was tasked with maintaining law and order, in charge of a small force of troopers.
Flash forward to 1888, and James is in forced retirement due to government cost-cutting measures, and looking back at a series of murders committed by the notorious Burgess gang, including the murder of a young surveyor, George Dobson. That's the case that haunts James all those years later.
Wilson writes this story well, although the timeframe variances will need readers to pay close attention to the main threads to keep them distinct. They are, after all, not that far apart. The character's built here are well done, and the sense of place and timeframe felt very true to life and real.
Definitely one for fans of historical fiction, and definitely for anybody who is interested in the particular timeframe, and the effect that the gold rush had in places like New Zealand and Australia.
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BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
BLURB
Greymouth, New Zealand, 1866: The Burgess gang is heading towards town, and a young surveyor from one of the country's leading families has vanished. Inspector James is preparing for trouble.
In the gold-mining town of Greymouth, where drunks fall asleep smoking and burn down their houses, the town is constantly inundated with floods, and fifty-seven hotels have sprung up in a year to accommodate the hordes of miners and gold thieves, Inspector William Henry James is tasked with keeping the town safe with a small force of troopers.
In 1888, forced into retirement by government cuts, James walks home beside the Whanganui River remembering his association with a series of murders by the notorious Burgess gang: back in 1866 he had forced the gang to leave Greymouth. The gang took a steamer up to Nelson and within days killed five men on the Maungatapu Track. Soon after, Inspector James discovered the body of a young surveyor, George Dobson, murdered by Burgess and his crew. The gang was gone, but one guilty man remained, and James was determined to bring him to trial. The events that transpired haunted him for the rest of his life.
| Review | A Cold Wind Down the Grey, Wendy M. Wilson | Karen Chisholm
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Tuesday, June 23, 2020 |
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