Carved in Blood

Author/Guide: Michael Bennett

Why a Booktrail?

2025: In the depths of the bleak New Zealand winter comes the rising of Matariki – a sacred constellation in Māori culture

ISBN: 978-1398536791
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

In the depths of the bleak New Zealand winter comes the rising of Matariki – a sacred constellation in Māori culture, heralding a time of new beginnings. For former Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman, life is good: her work in her hometown of Tātā Bay is going well, the community is thriving, and her daughter Addison is getting engaged.

But this Matariki brings unwelcome change. When Hana’s ex-husband Jaye walks into an Auckland liquor store and directly across the path of a gunman, their family’s hard-won peace is shattered.

With the stakes at their highest, Hana finds herself picking up a path she thought she’d never return to. Desperate for answers, she rejoins the police to help scour the city for the unidentified shooter. But as the investigation progresses, she finds herself unprepared for the darkness of the world she is entering.

Locations

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New Zealand - South Island
E: Tata Beach

Travel Guide

Maungawhau

The author says: Maungawhau is a volcano (of course!) It’s also a sacred mountain for the local iwi (Māori tribe), as are most maunga – Māori see mountains as living things, our ancestors. Centuries ago, Maungawhau was a fortified pā (fortress), with great defensive palisades built on terraces carved into the mountainside. Climbing the maunga, Hana Westerman is very aware that the organised crime groups suspected of being involved in the shooting have closed their ranks, raised their fortifications – resisting outside intrusion as effectively as the barricades did centuries before.

Auckland weather

New Zealand is a long skinny island system perched precariously between two massive bodies of water, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Summers are usually magnificent; I’m an open water swimmer and we’ve had seven months so far this summer where I’ve been swimming in the ocean for an hour or more every day, without any fear of getting cold.

But winters can be hell. The Tasman and the Pacific both get tempestuous. It’s not uncommon for two intersecting weather systems to collide. If Auckland is ground zero, then it’s carnage. The harbour bridge closes, flights are grounded, storm pipes burst, streets flood, yachts break free of their moorings and get thrown up on rocks.