{"id":5720,"date":"2024-05-18T05:30:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T12:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5720"},"modified":"2024-05-18T05:30:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-18T12:30:04","slug":"michael-bennett-return-to-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/michael-bennett-return-to-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bennett: Return to Blood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hana Westerman #2<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is an interesting new series.\u00a0 In the first novel, New Zealand cop Hana Westerman took down a serial killer \u2013 and then walks away from the job.\u00a0 She\u2019s not just a New Zealander, she\u2019s a M\u0101ori. The M\u0101ori culture is infused into both books, lending them an interest and snap.\u00a0 She was conflicted in book one: is she a M\u0101ori, or is she a cop?\u00a0 Is she meant to enforce laws against her own people?\u00a0 In book two she\u2019s back in the tiny seaside town where she grew up, living down the street from her father, Eru. Her daughter, Addison, and her roommate, PLUS 1, are back in Auckland living in Hana\u2019s old place \u2013 and to Hana\u2019s annoyance their new puppy is peeing all over her beloved garden.<\/p>\n

Hana is settling into her new life, running along the beach, teaching teens how to drive and pass the test they\u2019ll take to get their license, and taking care of the M\u0101ori meeting house.\u00a0 However, when Addison and PLUS 1 come for a visit, they\u2019re out on the beach one night, and Addison discovers some bones.\u00a0 This does two things: the bones, which are quickly identified, turn out to belong to a young woman about Addison\u2019s age.\u00a0 This gets inside of Addison\u2019s head and she can\u2019t let go.\u00a0 Much like her daughter, the discovery also gets inside Hana\u2019s head, and she is having the difficult experience of seeing her old colleagues run the case.\u00a0 She wants to help, but there\u2019s only so far she can go before she\u2019s shut out.<\/p>\n

The life of the dead young woman is narrated by \u2013 herself, as we see flashbacks to her life as a junkie and sex worker who eventually found love and kicked her habit, then fell off with disastrous results.\u00a0 You can see the connection Addison feels to her and in her dreams she communicates with her.\u00a0 Addison is so intense she seeks out the dead girl\u2019s boyfriend.<\/p>\n

Hana\u2019s intensity pushes her into investigative mode, and she unveils some evidence that she reluctantly shares with the police.\u00a0 She\u2019s so conflicted, it\u2019s obvious to the reader that she hasn\u2019t quite figured out where she wants her life to land.\u00a0 She\u2019s such a rich character.\u00a0 The author fleshes her out in interesting ways \u2013 she\u2019s a precise thinker and uses her own drawings to record crime scenes or suspect\u2019s faces.\u00a0 She\u2019s a mother, a daughter, an aunt and a cousin whose family resents her for leaving town.\u00a0 She\u2019s watching her father age.\u00a0 And through it all, Bennett draws in her M\u0101ori culture in an effortless manner.<\/p>\n

Hana\u2019s character is a major reason these aren\u2019t run of the mill police procedurals.\u00a0 The story here could have come from the pen of any number of writers of police novels, and like the best of them, the setting, culture and personalities of the characters make the books sparkle.\u00a0 I actually thought this was a less cliched story than the first book, which is a serial killer story, but both books provide a propulsive read.\u00a0 I\u2019m more than committed as a reader in finding out what choices Hana makes next.\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hana Westerman #2 This is an interesting new series.\u00a0 In the first novel, New Zealand cop Hana Westerman took down a serial killer \u2013 and then walks away from the job.\u00a0 She\u2019s not just a New Zealander, she\u2019s a M\u0101ori. The M\u0101ori culture is infused into both books, lending them an interest and snap.\u00a0 She … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[884,948,1696,1698,1480,1697,8,1695,1276],"class_list":["post-5720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-atria-books","tag-family","tag-hana-westerman","tag-maori-culture","tag-michael-bennett","tag-new-zealand","tag-police","tag-return-to-blood","tag-robin-agnew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5720"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5724,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5720\/revisions\/5724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}