Book review
Lovers of the "cosy English murder" will no doubt enjoy this "cosy Kiwi murder" story, especially if they happen to be from Hawke’s Bay where the dastardly deed is set.
"Cosy" is an apt adjective as we are spared grisly descriptions of battered bodies and the various protagonists are people you might meet in the street any day.
The victim we are led to believe is a missing schoolgirl and "Dead Girl Gone" may give some readers echoes of the tragic disappearance of Kirsa Jensen in Hawke’s Bay in 1983.
Less than cosy is the appearance of gratuitous swearing mouthed by bookstore owners and amateur detectives Eloise and Garth.
The first-person narrative ping-pongs between these two, a technique which keeps the readers on their toes and keeping track of the gallery of weirdos, misfits and nasties also involves some mental agility.
For the reader who knows little of modern New Zealand fiction (like this reviewer) there is much to learn.
Authors’ names are dropped and titles thrown about that the literati will immediately recognise and, like movie-goers watching a film set in New Zealand, they will warm to mentions of Havelock North, Hasting, Napier and Te Mata.
Havelock North, the authors tell us, is called "Havvers" by the locals, and the town’s portrayal as a rather genteel and sophisticated corner of provincial New Zealand suggests that such an affectation may well be genuine.
Throwing Māori and Pasifika phrases into everyday conversation may be the norm in Havelock North but some readers may well feel it’s overdone.
When it comes to the bookshop we have an assemblage of loveable eccentrics bound by their love of books.
That the authors are booksellers is no coincidence.
This gaggle of characters is bound together over 57 short chapters by the underlying theme of the "Great Book Launch" scheduled for just 50 days ahead.
There is no shortage of tension.
Cosy to the end, we are spared direct exposure to gruesome remains but we learn who did the dirty deed and, in a twist that works well, the deceased is not perhaps who we thought it might be.
But enough! Let’s not give away the dramatic denouement, which for you may work well or maybe not.
The bookshop detectives have already topped the bestseller lists and once they’ve cleared their stock of Dead Girl Gone you can bet they’ll find time for another cosy murder.
Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer
