Better the Blood by Michael Bennett

The qualities of a great mystery thriller include a sense of place, a human hero, and a page-turning pace. Readers will find all three in Better the Blood, a spectacular, tension-filled thriller by Michael Bennett. A sense of place is integral to the plot of the story and throughout the novel we learn of the “far-reaching impacts of colonialism” in New Zealand and the often-uneasy integration of identity and heritage into modern multicultural society. The hero, Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman is presented with both human and humane worries and decisions, torn between her Māori roots and her duties as a police officer for the Auckland Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB). The page-turning pace never slows with the introduction of Māori history and culture because it is just that information we need to figure out the ‘why’ of the serial killer’s behavior and who he will target next.

We learn that just after Hana joined the force, she was placed on a team sent to crush a tribal demonstration protesting the government theft of sacred Māoriland. This experience is described both in second and third person from Hana’s point of view.

For the Māori cops it was a nightmare. You learn your whole life to treat your elders with respect, to give others the dignity they deserve, to come to resolution through words, the way of the marae. Then you wake up one morning, you pull on your uniform. The man you love makes you scrambled eggs on toast, no salmon because you’re three months pregnant and you’ve given up fish. You get dropped off at work. And that morning you realize your history, your background, the things you got taught on marae, none of that matters. You’re a person with a uniform. And a truncheon. That’s all you are.

Hana remembers some of the Māori cops who had been out of police college a bit longer trying to talk to their seniors, asking them, ‘Please, don’t make us do this.’ The senior staff didn’t want to know. ‘This is what you were trained to do,’ they said. ‘These people are breaking the law, they’ve defied every court order that’s been put in front of them. It’s a law-and-order issue, it’s a sanitation issue, those shitty falling-down shacks, it’s a health and safety issue. Just do your job.

Just do your job.’ [pp. 127-128]

At the very beginning of the story (Chapter 1: A Smudge on the Page of History) the author describes a scene from 5 October 1863 in which a daguerreotypist is moving and repositioning a drunk English captain and five members of his troop for a daguerreotype. The narrative is in third person with dialogue among the seven characters.

The daguerreotypist goes amongst the soldiers, carefully moving and repositioning each of them to most advantageously address the stark New Zealand light as it falls through the branches of the towering tree they stand beneath. ‘This is modern-day alchemy,’ he enthuses, aware that for those unfamiliar with this new technology, the process of creating a daguerreotype can be disarming. ‘A little piece of magic. Your images are captured for all time; this moment will remain long after your bones are dust…When I move the cap, you must stay perfectly still. Perfectly still. The slightest movement and you will be but a smudge on the page of history.’ [p. 3]

The daguerreotype provides visual representation of an historical event central to the story. The six soldiers from a New Zealand British Army troop are posing underneath a tree where they have wrongfully and brutally executed a Māori chief. This visual becomes a touchstone for the killer who is trying to put right the heinous execution that occurred in the past. What bothers the killer and builds empathy for him in the reader is that he’s very aware past atrocities toward the Māori still impact their lives today. The Māori people have long time wounds from British colonialism. The impact of many generations of violence and wrongdoings reverberate over generations, creating untoward outcomes. Is it possible to redress these wrongs? Maybe not, but the killer believes that to let them continue to multiply without even trying feels like another evil. The killer wants to put things right. Hana realizes his intentions and that his murders are utu—the Māori tradition of rebalancing past crimes. She explains her torn feelings:

‘I am part of a justice system that suppresses, that represses. Half our prison population are Māori. We’re only fourteen per cent of the country’s population. You and me and our colleagues add to the number every day. That’s our job. That Māori kid back there, just wanting to get to work. We both know that driver’s licence violations are the way most young Māori get the first strike on their record. Then they struggle to get a job, they’re labeled bad, and eventually it’s easier just to give up trying and to be bad. I know the stats, you know the stats, we all do. I’ve just been pretending they’re nothing to do with me.’ [p. 241]

I have to include a quote here that typifies the author’s skill in setting a scene. As I mentioned before, the novel starts with an event from 1863. We then fast forward sixty years. Hana and her detective partner Stan receive a video of one of the killer’s victims, which leads them to a condemned building called The Palace.

The Palace looms in the darkness, a crumbling three-story edifice. The electricity has been cut off for years, the owners waiting to see which happens first: a property developer with an impressively bulging wallet turning up to make the right offer, or one of the itinerants who drift in and out of the place falling asleep with a half-finished joint and burning the decaying structure down. [p. 33]

The partners enter the building and begin searching for a victim the killer has told them they will find there.

Hana sounds out the hollow space, finding the middle point. She draws the flashlight back half a metre and…

She slams the end of the flashlight into the wall. It goes straight through. She scrapes away plaster, points the beam through the fist-sized hole, searching the dark room beyond. The beam falls on something inside. But the hole in the wall is too small to see clearly what it is.

Hana steps back. She kicks at the wall, hard. The newly plastered-over section caves in, leaving an opening the size of a fireplace. Stan grimaces. ‘Oh God.’ His hand goes to his nose at a rush of rank air.

Lit by the beams of the two torches is a body. A rope is noosed around its neck. The body is suspended from a rafter.

It sways gently. It’s a man. Late twenties. Naked. He’s dead. The beam of Hana’s flashlight picks out his arms. His hands are bound in front of his torso, the feet tied at the ankle. She studies the strange scene in the hidden room. Outside, the rain keeps falling. [p. 36]

Unlike many other multiple murder cases the reader, and Hana, find out quite early who the killer is. Getting ahead of him and working out how to stop him sets the pace of the narration. Do we want him to be found? That’s another aspect of this novel that I found unique. The author is able to build empathy in the reader for this individual who is on a killing spree. At a certain point, we become as torn as Hana: Should we condone violence for any cause and if we did, what consequences would we face? This reminded me so much of Showtime’s Dexter (2006-2013), the likable sociopathic serial killer. Is Dexter a bad person who does good things or a good person who does bad ones? Or neither? Or both?

I think what I love most about Bennett’s writing is the respect he gives to the Māori culture. He uses some te reo Māori language, with the English translation footnoted on the page. I’ll close with one of the many descriptions showing his love of the land and the Māori culture.

Hana’s eyes are dark, a shade so deep that in some lights it’s hard to know if they are brown or black. The smudges of soil left behind are almost as dark as her eyes. Almost. A creeper vine has tangled its way through the branches of a flourishing stand of kawakawa. She’ll need to deal with that. She breaks off a kawakawa leaf, one with lots of holes in it. She remembers the village she grew up in, far from Auckland, an elder from her tribe taking a group of young kids into the bush, teaching them about the plants of the forest. ‘The caterpillars know which leaves have the most goodness,’ the elder said, in te reo Māori.

That was a long time ago.

A lifetime ago. [pp. 7-8]

To quote David Heska Wanbli Weiden, “This novel has it all: a gripping mystery, complex and memorable characters, and timely social and cultural commentary. Don’t miss it!”

I recommend the YouTube video Michael Bennett Discusses Better the Blood. In this discussion, Michael Bennett gives a shout out to two New Zealand crime writers he’s enjoyed reading: Laurie Mantell and Paul Thomas. The novels of the latter feature a Māori cop, and his investigations tend to be comical; Mantell’s are more conventional police procedurals. Also mentioned are the authors Nalini Singh and Michelle Warren.

To learn more about colonization in New Zealand I recommend A History of New Zealand, 1769 to 1914 and The Journey for Māori. Comments after the video Impacts of Colonization on Modern Māori Culture debate the pros and cons of British colonization.

The book cover was painted by Michael Bennett’s daughter Mahina Rose Holland Bennett. It depicts a symbol that is pivotal to the story and relates to the killer’s mission.

Check Amazon for more on this book I love.