Our crime specialist shares 10 great crime reads to look out for this month.

CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH

Better the Blood by Michael Bennett

More than 150 years ago, on the top of Maunga Whakairoiro – or as the colonisers called it, Mount Suffolk – a picture is taken of a Māori chief, hanging from a tree, six victorious soldiers in the foreground. Despite all the inconsistent efforts of reconciliation in the intervening decades, there’s still injustice all over New Zealand. Nobody knows this better than Hana Westerman, a Māori cop with her own bitter history on that very same mountain, and who’s working the darkest case of her life. There’s a serial killer in Auckland, and they have Hana in their sights, sending her footage of crime scenes, putting her on the trail of a series of deaths that seem to otherwise have no links to each other. But Hana is tenacious, and she is determined. As the case spirals deeper into the past, she’s also the only one who can do anything about it.

Better the Blood is a superb police procedural, one that delivers a pitch-perfect crime novel that never ceases to be entertaining, all while challenging its readers to consider how they feel about death, revenge and the notion of bad guys versus good guys in fiction and real life. The footnote translations of Māori words lend the book authenticity, depth and immersion in a culture just across the Tasman Sea. Michael Bennett is in full control, effortlessly juggling these enthralling characters, gripping story, and the ever-shrinking distance between past and present when it comes to acts that must never be forgotten. Readers, let yourself hear what he has to tell you.

NEW CRIME FICTION

Framed by John M. Green

Art conservator JJ Jego is lounging on a yacht by her harbourside apartment (well, one she’s housesitting for her boss, but let a girl dream) when movement at a neighbouring apartment attracts her attention – and her camera. When she’s going over the footage, she sees something unexpected: a Van Gogh that was destroyed 80 years ago and a Rembrandt stolen in a Boston art heist. Convinced they’re real, JJ goes on the hunt, but nobody’s hiding artworks like that without a reason. Green’s latest is a spirited caper that navigates from post-pandemic Australia to Northern Ireland to glittering Monte Carlo – and it’s anything but paint-by-numbers.

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

When Hannah enters the hallowed grounds of Oxford in her first year of university, the college life that had always seemed like a fantasy is now a reality. Her blithely wealthy roommate April is a lot of fun and comes with pre-acquired friends who envelop Hannah in a new life. Everything is just as the brochures said – until April is murdered, and Hannah is the one who finds her. Now, a decade later, the man convicted of April’s murder dies in jail, awaiting a final appeal, and there’s a journalist asking questions of Hannah and her friends. Uncomfortable questions. Ones that make Hannah question everything she knew about those closest to her. And she might not want to hear the answers. This is a psychological campus crime flush with wealth and wine and dark suspicion.

Gone to Ground by Bronwyn Hall

UN surgeon Rachel Forester is based – not entirely by choice – in a remote medical clinic in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo. When tensions escalate in the area and Rachel misses the evacuation flight, there’s only one way out. Teaming up with three members of a Canadian special forces crew, they must navigate the jungle to get to safety – but danger will follow them out of the trees. This is an incredible debut by Melbourne- based Hall: a nuanced and vivid adventure thriller to savour from the safety of your own couch.

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin

Before you get 10 pages into this absolute firecracker of a book, you’ll be hoping a production company has snapped up the movie rights already. Waking up in a cab crossing the Brooklyn Bridge at 3am, Liv can’t really remember why she’s there or where she’s headed, until they pull up outside her home. When she tries to get in, her cat’s not there, the furniture isn’t hers, and the people who live there definitely aren’t keen on her coming inside. Her hands are covered in messages, one appearing more than any other: STAY AWAKE. And when she searches her pockets, she realises why: there’s no way she can trust herself when she has no idea what she’s capable of. Goldin, author of The Escape Room, is master of a breakneck plot, and you should probably start this early in the day – because there’s no way you’ll sleep through this one.

The Wrong Woman by J.P. Pomare

It’s been a while since ex-cop Reid was back in the town of Manson – it’s a place he was happy to leave, and everyone else was happy about it too. Now an insurance assessor – among other things – Reid’s been called back there by work to investigate a car crash that left a professor dead and his wife, Eshana, unconscious. Luckily for Reid, the town is distracted by another case: a girl who vanished the same night as the crash. As the book moves between Eshana’s life leading up to the crash and Reid in the present, we watch Reid as he digs further, rendering his plan to get in and get out virtually unseen impossible. Manson is a place where Reid does not want to be remembered, and where there’s a lot to forget.

Alias Emma (Alias Emma series, Book 1) by Ava Glass

Spy books are thin on the ground, even though demand for them is still high, and the arrival of this immediately enthralling spy thriller is as welcome as remembering you’ve got a gun in a knife fight. Emma is on a dull reconnaissance mission when she’s asked to convince a young doctor to go under secret service protection. He refuses to leave his patients who need him, but unfortunately for him, those in pursuit of his connections do not care about medical ethics. Fortunately for him, Emma is exactly the person you need onside in any fight for your life. Together, they traverse London to find safety while evading trouble, the law and most of her orders. This is a dynamic, thrilling romp that’ll leave you breathless.

The Brothers by S.D. Hinton

There’s no place like home, really, especially when that’s somewhere as picturesque as Lorne, on Victoria’s Surf Coast. But Jake Harlow’s not back for a holiday, he’s back for the funeral of his younger brother Tom. Despite his first impressions, Jake finds a series of notes that imply Tom’s death wasn’t accidental at all. As a special forces veteran, Jake knows how to focus, and with some familiar faces helping out, he sets out to uncover who threatened his family – and if he can still do anything about it. This is a tense, immersive and disquieting debut.

The Unbelieved by Vikki Petraitis

True crime writer and podcaster Petraitis’ first foray into crime fiction nabbed her the very first Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Prize – and when you read it, you’ll know why. Senior Detective Antigone Pollard has moved from Melbourne to her hometown of Deception Bay, where she’s hoping to get away from a case gone terribly wrong. Out one night, Antigone gets some violently unwelcome sexual attention she’s able to fight her way out of, but when she reports the potential offender, Deception Bay’s response is nowhere near what she expected. After leaving one place that didn’t care about victims, finding herself in another is nightmare material – and she can’t wake up from it. This is a prescient, explosive and gripping cop thriller.

After the Flood by Dave Warner

In Australia’s northwest, Detective Inspector Dan Clement is waiting for something to happen. Everything’s seemed pretty mild lately – small-scale property damage at a clinic, a bit of protest at an abattoir, the theft of explosives from a mine at Halls Creek – but taken together, Clement’s worried they add up to something bigger. When a man is found dead, nailed to the road crucifixion-style, it’s apparent that whatever’s happening has kicked into dangerous territory. And when the territory Clement’s watching over is as expansive as Western Australia’s north, tracking down what’s happening with his hit-and-miss team is one hell of a large- scale problem.

Also available this month:

Ann Cleeves’ The Rising Tide; John Brownlow’s Seventeen; Imran Mahmood’s All I Said Was True; Greg Woodland’s The Carnival Is Over; Peter James’ Picture You Dead; David Lagercrantz’s Dark Music; Daniel Silva’s Portrait of an Unknown Woman; and Anthony Horowitz’s The Twist of a Knife.