Mysteries: ‘Carved in Blood' by Michael Bennett

Wall Street Journal

11-07-2025

Homicide detectives, in fiction at least, are rarely stargazers. There is no crime, after all, in the heavens. But there is plenty in New Zealand, where the novels of Michael Bennett are set and where Hana Westerman is as familiar with the night sky as she is with a murder scene. 'When Matariki rises,' Hana thinks as she contemplates a winter constellation, 'it is a time for remembering the dead . . . also a time for starting anew.' During her tenure as a Māori cop in a predominantly white police force, Hana learned to rely not only on her detective skills but also on the strength derived from her native culture. 'Carved in Blood' is the third novel in the Hana Westerman series and is rooted, like the previous entries, in its heroine's Māori traditions. This time around, however, Hana's turbulent past and her uncertain future in the civilian world—not to mention the crime at the novel's core—will test her resilience.
Having quit the Auckland police, Hana is back in her hometown of Tātā Bay on South Island, where personal dramas—her widowed father's new girlfriend, her own tentative romance with a private investigator—are abruptly overshadowed by a violent liquor-store robbery. We see it unfold via the unfeeling eye of a security camera: 'The offender releases his grip on the manager, who falls to the floor.' Then the gunman turns and 'discharges his weapon twice. Hamilton falls.' The wounded man, Jaye Hamilton, is an off-duty detective—and Hana's ex-husband. With Jaye in critical condition in the hospital, the hunt for the gunman takes Detective Inspector Elisa Williams ('brown, young, smart') and her squad into the underworld of drugs, money laundering and police corruption. Hana argues her way onto Elisa's team as a temporary officer and gradually learns that Jaye's shooting, far from being random, is connected to his past work as an undercover agent.
Like the previous novels in this series, 'Carved in Blood' is straightforward in both style and substance. Each plot turn is convincing and each character fully rounded in a setting that Mr. Bennett obviously loves but also sees clearly. An officer unaccustomed to violence may protest that 'this is New Zealand . . . this doesn't happen here,' referring to Jaye's shooting, but the author convinces us otherwise, describing methamphetamine and cocaine trade routes with journalistic precision. Somewhat predictably, this tour of New Zealand's dark side also includes a detour into the mind of the figure who eventually emerges as the novel's villain. 'He'd had to teach himself every emotion,' we learn of this psychopath. 'Except one. Anger was the only one that came naturally.' In the hallowed tradition of crime fiction, this monster nurses a grudge, crafts his revenge and in a final showdown dares our heroine to dispense her own justice. Hana resists the temptation, but afterward retrieves her identity as Detective Senior Sergeant Westerman, declaring, 'I have unfinished business.'