I came late to this party and it was a great party. An intriguing thriller that talks about killers and murders but also about traditions and history.
Hana Westerman is a strong characters, a clever woman and an interesting characters.
The plot kept me hooked and the solid mystery kept me guessing and surprised me at each twists.
Can't wait to read other stories by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

For some reason, the book did not grip or interest me, sadly.

I tried picking the book back up and reading again, but it simply is not a book for me!

Thank you for the ARC, NetGalley!

This novel caught me off guard, I was expecting a routine (in a literary sense) serial killer thriller, but it turns out to be so much more. Amongst all the action in Better the Blood is also a powerful study of the need for retribution, the desire for revenge and how good intentions can become corrupted by it. Serious questions posed to the reader, most notably how can people individually and collectively work to put right the wrongs of the past. It is also a cracking thriller set in Auckland, about as far away as it is possible from the regular settings of the serial killer genre.

The past looms large, and the novel starts with an atrocity carried out by British colonial troops 160 years ago. An atrocity still remembered for which there was neither justice nor retribution. Then eighteen years ago there was an incident at a Māori demonstration involving the now senior detective Hana Westerman, who was then a pregnant rookie officer, which is forever lodged in the mind of one child who witnessed it.

The killer himself is interesting and charismatic, brought to life as being thoughtful educated man, if somewhat corrupted by circumstances. A man who has thrown his life into trying to do good and right wrongs the accepted way through the justice system only to be thwarted at every step makes for a very human killer.

Hana is strong minded and dedicated to both her job and her family. She separated from Jaye her now superior officer shortly after the birth of her daughter Addison. Now seventeen Addison flits between her parents but Hana is determined to keep her safe particularly after a rapist shows an interest in her. Hana has green fingers and uses gardening to de-stress and feel in touch with the land. She is also a skilled artist and brings the observational skills of the artists eye to her work including sketching crime scenes, a nice touch of originality.
Addison is a shaven-headed beauty who is typical for many of her age, a DJ and rap artist who is at the early stages of experimenting with life, dabbling in drink, drugs and sex. Her best friend PLUS 1 is non-binary and is referred throughout as they/them and they have an off-kilter bonded friendship. Addison has fierce conviction in the opinions that she holds, as most of us were at that age, so when she accidently discovers the part played by her mother before her birth she is rocked to her core.

Māori culture is at the core of the novel and as someone who knew little of it I though it made for fascinating reading. The prose is peppered with native words and phrases together with some of their social customs and interactions, which are helpfully translated or explained by footnotes. The author is clearly proud of his heritage, and rightly so, and in reading this we can become to understand a little of a culture ravaged by colonial expansion. These were a people in tune with nature and the land on which they live but have no concept of ownership of, they were stewards of nature, not land barons. Being swindled and ripped from it by colonial powers caused a trauma and subsequent poverty that is difficult for the modern Brit to comprehend, truly a motive for retribution.

Hana has the constant dilemma of trying to be true to her Māori roots and working as a police officer. That bad day in the past led to many of her community severing ties with her and she somehow needs to bridge this gap and be accepted back.

Is debt and honour held individually or collectively by a group, a tribe or family is a searching question posed. It is not just the man who wields the stick who bears responsibility but also those of the collective who haven’t even touched the stick and the debt does not just vanish with the passing of time. It is here where the title is established in that in their justice it is better the blood of the innocent than no blood at all. Just as ‘an eye for an eye’ risks leaving everyone blind, outdated beliefs must be left behind, something that Addison comes to see.

Better the Blood manages to combine a very modern entertaining thriller with a powerful and thought-provoking social message. It is almost impossible to put right the wrongs of the past, but we must keep trying. A remarkable novel.

Hana is a tenacious cop, juggling carear with single motherhood - so far, so tropey. However what makes Hana different from the thousands of other police people who are only alive on the page is that Hana is Maori. Given that Maori people are over represented in the New Zealend prison system due to the structural injustices of colonialisim, Hana's decision to join the police was not easy and one she paid for with an estrangement from the people she grew up with. Hana however finds solace in her daughter Addison, who is creative and loving, is fiercly proud of the culture and history she has inherited, even though it is one that most recently is extreamly painful.

After Hana discovers a man hanging, hidden behind an empty apartment wall she is on the trail of a serial killer. It becomes clear through her work that the killer she is tracking is not only Maoir, but is killing in an attempt to right the wrongs done to his ancestors. Many will have a deep sympathy with the plight of indigenous cultures which have been decimated by colonialism, but we also need to acknowledge that sympathy, and it's twin pity, are not what anyone is actually asking for.

It is these kind of tensions between big ideas of ownership, justice, retribution which lie at the heart of Better the Blood, which are played out in the chase between Hana and the killer, and also between Hana and her daughter Addison, who struggles to accept the role her mother, as a police officer, has played in the suppression of her own people.

The surface question of this book is "Who is killing these people?" but as a book of layers, readers who choose to dig down further find other questions, many of which will be uncomfortable. Like it's antipodean counterpart, Dust off the Bones, we are seeing an emergence in crime fiction of narrative which deeply engages with crime. Not just the crime that propels a reader to turn the page to find out who dun it. Rather crime that is rooted in great injustices, crimes of nations and states, crimes for which no one person can be jailed, so we can easily say justice is done and move on. Crimes which are so large, that they ripple throughout history, and on the level of time are still present, happening and, ongoing, before our very eyes.

Always so good to read detective stories set in other countries and this one was interesting with a New Zealand setting and a Maori detective. The story was good and the characters well-written. The many footnote explanations were interesting and it was fascinating to learn about the culture and its history, but they dragged one out of the story making the reading a little disjointed. That said I will be looking forward to more from this author. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I enjoyed Better the blood, it was interesting having a different kind of police thriller and having a Māori detective Hana as the lead was good. The story gradually built and I liked the way Michael Bennett used the history of the Māori culture in the story line. I will definitely read more from this author and I hope there will be more from Detective Hana Westerman.

Better the Blood is an intriguing book and I really loved it because beside the main story there are lots of references to the Māori culture and traditions. It is very fascinating the choice the author Michael Bennett made to include so many Māori words and give a translation in the footnotes. I strongly believe that Māori culture as well as other cultures that are at risk of disappearing, need to be preserved and safeguarded.

In the city of Auckland, Australia, a mysterious serial killer is disturbing the quietness of the city. Detective Hana Westerman, a Māori descendant, has to investigate and see if these deaths are connected. Gradually, all the emerging details confirm that these deaths are all related to the experience of the colonization New Zealand suffered in the 19th century. So many Māori people were stripped of their lands, their rights and subdued to the English crown. In particular, there is an image that the killer has discovered and it portrays six members of an English colonial army troop staring at a camera and above them a dead Māori leader, bound hand and foot, strung up from a high branch, hanging by his neck. The serial killer’s intention is to restore the balance (utu) and get vengeance by killing the six descendants of the six English soldiers. The serial killer was a person that did everything he could to defend Māori rights, but this defense became an obsession for him and that is the reason why his criminal actions are to be strongly condemned and he is also harshly criticized by the Māori community for his violence, because violence can only bring more violence.

A brilliant debut from the new Zealand writer. An excellent plot, great characters and a real insight into the lot of the Maori people. The lead cop Hana Westerman is a Maori and she is tasked with seeking a motive for a series of murders which appear to be linked to past events. At the same time she is having to juggle the demands of family life and a tricky daughter. A gripping and satisfying story, and I look forward to future novels from this writer.

Plenty of crime fiction coming out of New Zealand at the moment is trying to grapple with the country’s colonial heritage. Few have done it so deliberately as Michael Bennett’s debut novel Better the Blood. Before coming to fiction Bennett has been an award winning screenwriter and true crime author, his book In Dark Places chronicling one of New Zealand’s most infamous miscarriages of justice. In Better the Blood, Bennett delves deep into the legacy of New Zealand’s colonial past and debates, through crime fiction, how best to come to terms with that history.
The book opens with a daguerreotype taken in 1863 of a group of British soldiers underneat a Māori chieftain hanging from a tree. Cut the present day and Senior Detective Hanna Westerman is having a bad day, the sexual assault victim she was supporting through a trial did not get the justice they were seeking. Then she receives a mysterious video clip which leads her to a body, the first of a series of murders which will tie back not only to that photograph but Hanna’s own past and the use of the police force of Māori officers to break up Māori protests.
The central question of Better the Blood is how a people makes peace with a violent past. And it does so through a range of characters. The instigator in this book claims to be trying to seek balance through killing, giving rise to the question of whether there is a better way. Hana herself has to come to terms with her role as oppressor but also the need she sees to be part of the police force. And Hana’s daughter Addison, as part of the new generation, needs to both come to terms with the ongoing prejudice against her, her desire for social justice and her need to live the life that she wants. None of these questions is simple and Bennett does not shy away from their complexity so that while there is clearly a “bad guy” and “good guys”, nothing is quite that simple.
Hana is a strong lead for this story. Committed and torn and also very good at what she does. Understanding the paradox of being a Māori in the Auckland Police force
"She thought about quitting the cops. She thought about it long and hard. That would be the easy answer. But it was the wrong answer. For Hana, being a cop wasn’t just a job… But then then the job you were born to do damages you. It damages you deep. But because it’s destiny, because there’s nothing else on earth you can imagine being, you find a way to live with the damage."
And in a way this epitomises one of the central concerns of the novel. How do you live with a damaging past. What is the best way to respond, both as a person and as a society.
Overall, Bennett has delivered an engaging crime novel with a fascinating central character and plenty of heart. While there is possibly a fair amount of speechifying in Better the Blood, the story it is telling and the messages it gets across are important. And the narrative is propulsive and engaging enough to carry that weight.

I just can't believe this is a debut novel! So well written and thought out. I love a crime thriller and this was slightly different from any I've read before, being set in New Zealand. The descriptions of the Maori culture and language were fascinating and just drew me in, the meanings of the words in phrases printed at the bottom of the page was really useful and interesting too. I love Hana's character, she seems a troubled, complex woman who is still struggling with events in her past.
I really hope this is the start of a new series as I'm looking forward to reading more about Hana and would welcome any new books by this author.

A gritty thrilling read that gripped me from the beginning ,the history of New Zealand is steeped in sorrow and injustice that you can’t ignore and the book highlights this so we’ll!

A gripping debut fiction from author Michael Bennett. Hana Westerman is the Maori detective at the heart of this story, and I really hope we will see more of her in the future. Better the Blood tells the story of a serial killer with a difference, a link to a historic crime during the brutal colonisation of New Zealand in the 1860s. Set in Auckland, Hana is guided to various crime scenes by videos sent to her, the story unravels as their links to a photo (a daguerreotype of a group of soldiers posing in front of a Maori man hanging from a tree) become clear. Things become personal, and Hana must use her own experience and knowledge to find him.

I thoroughly enjoyed Better the Blood. A couple of small notes, the writing at times (especially in the beginning) felt a bit clunky but it got going then and felt smoother as the story came into it’s own; and it was somewhat predictable but I don’t think it took away from the overall story. I loved learning more about Maori culture (there are footnotes translating Maori words and phrases and briefly explaining traditions noted in the story). The author created a really fantastic sense of place and atmosphere throughout. Well-paced, engaging with well written characters. Recommended.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. In this case it is being served glacial. When the British Empire annexed Aotearoa (New Zealand) the Māori did not see this as a threat. Land, in their culture, was for caretaking by and for all; they didn't understand the concept of ownership of land but Britain did and their army enforced it. When Māori, largely peacefully, objected they were conned, coerced, displaced and destroyed, marginalised and murdered. Now, 160 years after the brutal suppression of a particular protest, someone of Māori lineage is seeking utu, a sort of revenge (although that is too negative a translation). Pitted against this avenger is Hannah Westermann, a Māori Senior Sergeant in the Auckland police force. Can she identify and stop New Zealand's first serial killer?
On the face of it this is a police procedural with a serial killer on the loose, but this is not that sort of story. The motivation of the killer is the still unfair condition of the Māori even under the ostensibly benign, system where the tribes and their ancestry, their culture and traditions are honoured as partners in the modern nation. The story is powerful, a proper thriller meeting all of the genres norms, but at heart it is an excoriating political statement about the operation and longstanding ramifications of colonisation. I liked the extensive use of the Māori language and the way the author uses this to highlight the cultural differences. If it were a police procedural thriller set in a typical UK or US environment I would have rated this as a 4 because it is well written, coherently plotted and exciting to read. Its background though makes it exceptional so I can easily raise it up to a 5, and probably more if I had more to give.

Humarie, Aroha, Manaaki

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

An unusual crime mystery set in New Zealand. I enjoyed the setting and the character of the Maori detective and it was refreshing to read a thriller that had so many elements to it, cultural and social.

I never repeat the blurb. I was really impressed by this book and had not thought that this would be the case. I learned a lot about a subject I'd not previously known while enjoying a good pace of narrative. Good stuff!

This book had me stumped. Sitting smug and thinking I had it all thought out, the author put me in my place. Finally we have a thriller that will keep you your toes.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK for an advance copy of Better the Blood, a thriller set in Auckland featuring Māori Detective Sergeant Hana Westerman.

Hana is sent a video of an abandoned building and when she gets there with her trainee, Stan, they find a secret room with a dead man tied up. There are more deaths and taunts and Hana comes to realise that her past is tied up in this case.

Better the Blood is not for me. I’m all about a good story and feel too old to wade through the social commentary and personal journeys of the characters, especially when I cannot connect with them. To be fair to the author he has picked a culture I know nothing about, the Māoris, and seems to do a great job of explaining it, both culturally and historically, and wades into the fraught territory of colonialism and racism. I can’t identify with their plight and found all the Māori language used perplexing (the author does use footnotes to translate, but not at the point of use).

The novel centres on Hana, a Māori police detective. She’s smart and resourceful, but the reader gets the impression that she is working in a white man’s organisation where she has been asked to do things that are tone deaf to her heritage. There is a lot of coming to terms with and examining her past actions. As the novel progresses it starts to focus on the killer and his motivation. I’m not even going to pretend to understand it as it is tied up in his Māori nationalism and some cultural concepts that it would inappropriate to claim understanding of after such a short read.

With the killer’s identity known before the half way mark the novel turns into more of a chase with Hana dogging his movements and him escaping her on more than one occasion. The ending is interesting with both Hana and the killer understanding themselves better and taking decisions on the back of it.

Better the Blood is too rich in a culture I don’t know for me, but I learned from it. I think it will appeal to readers who like a more literary approach and a novel with a concept.

This is a stunning offering set in Auckland, New Zealand by Michael Bennett, it is far more than crime fiction as it lays bare the horrors of Maori history, colonisation and how their life experiences continue to be a nightmare in the present. Maori Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman cannot believe when a white privileged law student who drugged, humiliated and raped a young native girl, is found guilty, but walks free, facing no punishment. In 1863, there is a photograph of 6 soldiers, and the hanging dead body of a Maori chief, with legs and arms bound together. Hana is a single mother, with a daughter, Addison, her ex-husband, is white, DI Jaye Hamilton, she has a past she has buried deep, and is mentor to DC Stanley Riordan.

Hana is sent a video that leads her to a condemned building, The Palace, and a secret walled room in which a man is found hanged and a spiral symbol in blood is discovered. The victim turns out to be Terrence McElvoy, a former offender convicted of the manslaughter of his baby, and it is not long before Hana receives another video. With no leads and no forensics, the question arises as to why the killer is choosing to send the videos to Hana. It is Hana who eventually begins to connect the rising number of the dead with a long ago but unforgotten haunting past, and the Maori concept of 'utu'. She is forced to address what happened so many years ago, when she and other Maori police officers were ordered and forced onto the police frontline in breaking up a peaceful Maori protest on Mount Suffolk.

Bennett writes an absolutely thrilling and riveting novel that I could not stop reading once I had started, it captivates whilst throwing a light on New Zealand's dark and troubled history, Auckland is a place of beauty that barely acknowledges the enormous levels of blood that lie beneath the land. The stellar characterisation of Hana is a major highlight, damaged by her experience of being a Maori police officer, used, abused and manipulated, she is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the pain, sorrow, suffering, grief and inequalities endured by the Maori community, past and present. This is a gripping read where you are likely to find yourself feeling some surprising levels of sympathy for the killer. Cannot recommend this highly enough. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I thought this was a thought provoking, and well written book. I liked the main character, and the setting. Well worth a read..

4.5* Better the Blood is the debut novel from Michael Bennett, chosen as one of the 'new blood' debuts of the year by Val McDermid for the 2022 Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. With previous debut authors including Jane Harper, Will Dean and Abir Mukherjee, the books are always excellent.

Hana is a senior detective in Auckland's Central Investigation Branch. She is led to a grisly murder by way of an anonymous video. As the bodies stack up, the link is steeped in Maori culture and history, not least Hana's Maori roots which clashed with her chosen career as a probationary police officer.

Surrounded by a fabulous cast of characters and drawing in a dark side to New Zealand history, Better the Blood is a fantastic read and one with a powerful message. The plot utterly zips along and it's a tricky one to put down.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the ARC.