Book Review - Better The Blood by Michael Bennet
Better the Blood is the new novel from award winning screenwriter, director, and author Michael Te Arawa Bennett. The opening of the novel is set in New Zealand in 1860. A group of British soldiers pose in front of the hanging corpse of a Māori man. The next scene takes us to modern day New Zealand and we meet Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman. Hana has used her own status as a Māori woman to convince another young Māori woman to testify against a young man who drugged and raped her. The case is a slam dunk and the young man is convicted. The sentencing is a horror show. The judge proceeds to do what we have seen many times in real life. He laments that this act of bad behavior has harmed this young man’s future as a lawyer and as an athlete. So he sentences the man to only a month of prison. Hana is horrified by the injustice. While she is fuming over the trial she gets a strange video emailed to her. The email is of a building exterior. She and her partner are able to identify the room and locate a hanged man. Since the man had been walled up after death it is obvious that it is foul play.
While looking into the murder she gets another video. She later realizes that this is the location where a suspicious suicide had occurred. Upon further investigation she establishes that this is a murder as well. While it is clear that there is a single killer, the methods differ as the victims have no clear connection at all. As if this is not enough trouble Hana is having trouble with her college age daughter who has become wrapped up in various indigenous rights movements as well as drugs and working as one of the regions top up and coming DJs. As Hana digs deeper into the case the bodies continue to pile up. She must confront issues with her own past and with the systemic racism that plagues New Zealand.
This novel is a great ride. It is fast paced with great characters and great writing. At its heart though it is more than just another murder mystery. It is a cry to deal with the injustices that the indigenous Māori people face in their own homeland still today. These issues are not at all dissimilar from those faced by Native Americans in the US and Canada. I know less than I would like about the history of New Zealand. I learned something here. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this book is that we in the English Speaking World have a lot still to answer for. Until we acknowledge and deal with the issues of the past they will continue to fester and sometimes turn to hate. Go on out and get this book today. You won’t regret it.