New Zealand fiction - Crime - Christchurch City Libraries
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New Zealand crime fiction is booming! We currently have more crime writers than ever before, and their output is making waves around the world. From the classic works of Ngaio Marsh and Laurie Mantell came a foundation for great Kiwi crime writing, and with Paul Cleave leading the way forward we have a solid contingent of blood-soaked, intricately -plotted grisly stories. With detectives (clean or corrupt) and amateur sleuths, seedy urban settings, and often underlying self-deprecating humour and wit, there's plenty of quality amongst these titles exploring the darker side of NZ Fiction. A Christchurch City Libraries list.
Head down to chilly Dunedin in this propulsive mystery-thriller, where a promising young student has met her tragic end after a fall from the window of her three-storey flat. The question remains: how did she wind up dead on the pavement?…
"A classic-style whodunnit" which unravels beneath the glittering Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve. It’s the 50th anniversary of the Mt John Observatory, and the body of a professor has been discovered under the telescope dome. Time to…
Told from the alternating perspectives of jury members, this hit debut from law academic Claire Baylis puts a fresh new spin on the crime genre. Four teenage boys are on trial for sexual assault charges after inventing a "Dice" game, where…
A bullied boy. A troubled sheriff. A high school janitor with a dark secret. Nothing is what it seems in this twisty, visceral thriller, where tension constantly bubbles beneath the surface - and it’s only a matter of time before it comes…
Michael Bennett brings a fresh Māori perspective to Kiwi crime with this powerful debut that delves into the horrors of New Zealand's cultural history. Hana Westerman, a Māori detective and single mother in Auckland, is sent a video that…
Fans of Jane Harper will love J. P. Pomare's latest crime thriller, a small-town mystery in which two puzzling cases intertwine in unexpected ways. Reid, now a PI in the city, left his hometown of Manson behind a decade ago, but is pulled…
25 years ago, Leah Parata went missing from her Hawke's Bay town after setting off for a hike through the Ruahine Range; Emily Kirkland was the last person to see her. Now working in the UK as an illustrator, Emily returns home to care for…
If you're wanting a dark and atmospheric mystery full of buried secrets, look no further. Nikki Crutchley's latest novel centres on Jac, who is compelled back to her hometown of Everly seven years after the house fire that killed her…
At once both a gripping mystery and a moving character study, Jacqueline Bublitz's debut tells the story of Alice, an 18-year-old who moves to New York City for a fresh start, only to become the latest Jane Doe, an unidentified murder…
Vanda Symon's first novel in over a decade brings us back to detective Sam Shephard. In the lead-up to her own maternity leave, Shephard finds herself investigating the murder and mutilation of a heavily pregnant woman. Confined to her…
Rose Carlyle's chilling, twisty debut is New Zealand's answer to domestic thrillers like 'Gone Girl' and 'The Wife Upstairs,' and will have you up all night flipping through the pages in the same way. Iris and Summer are mirror twins, both…
Tom Baragwanath's debut is beautifully written, full of descriptive language and social commentary; this is one for the readers who like their thrillers on the literary side. Children are going missing in the small town of Masterton, and…
Ben Sanders's Marshall Grade series returns with this gritty, action-packed new installment, in which the private investigator is plunged into the seedy underbelly of New York City when his former NYPD colleague is shot dead in a…
Based on true events, This Mortal Boy tells the controversial story of Albert Black, the second-to-last person hanged in New Zealand. Black was convicted of killing a man in a fight in 1955, and many questioned whether the public’s…
A game of murder-in-the-dark takes a sinister turn when a group of wealthy elitists come together one night, and a guest literally ends up dead. It's up to Inspector Alleyn to find the truth in this classic whodunnit. Ngaio Marsh was once…
A modern contemporary of Alan Duff's Once Were Warriors, Becky Manawatu's debut novel is a heart-wrenching journey into grief and loss, family violence and gang culture. Set in New Zealand's South Island/ Te Wai Pounamu, the novel spans…
This mystery by the super versatile Carl Nixon (The Waters) is the story of the discovery of bones, pointing to the unsolved disappearance of an English family who immigrated to Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island, in the 1970s. What happened…
The second installment of D.V. Bishop's Cesare Aldo series, set in Florence during the Renaissance, featuring a gay investigator. The Darkest Sin won the Historical Dagger Award for 2023 - just one instance in which Kiwis are holding their…