17 Years Later

 

I was waiting for months for this book on reserve at the local library, not just weeks -- so long, in fact, that I now can't remember where I heard about it (though its evident popularity assured me it would be worth waiting for). In the intervening time, I somehow got it onto my head that it was a non-fiction book, a true crime story, and I was quite startled when I eventually picked it up to discover that it's actually a novel.

J.P. Pomare has only been published for a few years but he's quickly become a crime writing sensation. 17 Years Later has as its central detective a crime podcaster (this seems to be becoming the sleuth type de jour, I've come across this idea several times now), an Australian ex-journalist who travels to New Zealand to investigate a long ago case involving the murder of a whole family, and Bill, their Maori chef, who may or may not have been wrongly imprisoned for the crime.

It was fun to read a murder mystery set in this part of the globe, and there are so many twists to the plot that I began to feel dizzy. It's fast-paced and full of tension, but not annoyingly convoluted, and Pomare does an excellent job in letting us see the story from different angles, squirming at the Primroses' condescending attitude to their local staff and the subtle Oz-Kiwi rivalry. Turns out I retrieved from the reserve shelf at the right time after all, 17 Years Later is a perfect summer read.