Parrot Heaven, Jessica Howland Kany

Because I'd read (and loved) A RUNNERS GUIDE TO RAKIURA by Jessica Howland Kany first I was prepared for PARROT HEAVEN. Which was handy because the slightly chaotic styling of the first novel is ramped up even more in this one - to frequently hilarious levels, although anybody new to this series may just wonder what the actual... .

If you're in that space, stick with it. This is crime fiction (in that there is some crime sprinkled throughout), but it's mostly storytelling about a place, some people, and a life that's, well different, probably doesn't come close to explaining it.

If you need to know more about who Maudie and Vil are, along with many of Vil's extended family, and the slightly batty residents of New Zealand's Rakiura Stewart Island, as seen through the eyes of outsider Maudie, then I'd strongly suggest that you check out what details you can glean from the first book. Whilst it won't be necessary to have read the earlier to launch into this second outing it may help, but then again, if you're the sort of reader that can't settle into chaos then nothing may help. 

Short synopsis first - Maudie and Vil, now married, with a couple of young kids are getting on with small island / wild weather / mad community life quite well - albeit haunted by the death of their beloved parrot, and the havoc wreaked by Bathmat the goat. Life with a toddler is proving somewhat of a challenge that Vil mostly meets by sitting in a bathchair on the lawn looking at nothing in particular while Maudie texts him little gems like "is our girl batshit?", and the goat eats his phone, and his divorced parents remarry treating their guests to a wedding cake full of wormholes (you'll have to read the book), and his father (referred to throughout as Dogbox) is charged with murder. 

Of course nothing's as simple as a bit of a murder charge (which also comes such a long way into the book that you might be wondering if this thing has been mislabelled by then), there's also an axe cult, The Epic of Gilgamesh, a particularly mismanaged community astronomy course, and the local pub quiz. Meanwhile as the murder (yes it is sort of still in there), threatens to wreak havoc on the family, Maudie steps into conduct her own investigation - buggered knees, missing prosthetic toes (first book - or you'll work it out here), and surprisingly literate, but frankly vaguely batshit crazy, toddler daughter, son, fisherman husband Vil, mother-in-law, madhouse community and all.

Written in a slightly chaotic style of short paragraphs, flow shifts, funny observations, lunatic conversation ploys, mad people and crazy goings on, PARROT HEAVEN is so far from traditional crime fiction that familiar territory is so much further than a packed lunch and waterbag will take you. This is the journey is more important than the destination reading, although to be honest the journey seemed to have thrown the map and compass into the nearest tidal pool. All of which matters not a jot - get the sense of humour and gentle love for this community at the core of these books, and a reader is in for a hell of a ride.