IT’S delightful to find the modern murder mystery 17 Years Later with a hat-tip to the cosy crime novels of yesteryear, reminiscent of my Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh-filled adolescence. Dame Ngaio even gets a mention in this New Zealand-based crime thriller.
A Melbourne-based podcaster is investigating a brutal crime, in a quaint town, 17 years later.
We experience the crime and the investigation from three main viewpoints; Sloane the podcaster, in the current day, TK, a disillusioned prison psychologist, overly invested and reluctant to reopen old wounds, and Bill, the (presumed) murderer, retelling the events leading up to the crime.
The shared narration builds suspense and creates drama.
Each narrated chapter is short, and every few pages you are left wondering: What can it all mean?
Why is everyone so reluctant to talk? Could he really be guilty? What would it mean if he were not? Could the real murderer still be out there? And what would he, or she, do to keep that secret and leave the previously convicted killer in jail?
The victims, a wealthy British family, outsiders, are juxtaposed with the local Maori community.
The themes of secrecy and exclusion, of insiders and outsiders, of belonging and not belonging, of place and class, are explored too.
The book doesn’t trumpet it to make a political point. These are not evil or inherently racist people.
Their circumstances have made them suspicious, insular, secretive, scared and difficult.
Despite their riches and good looks, the reader feels rather sorry for them.
They are deeply unhappy, damaged people, inadvertently creating motives for their own deaths.
The house where the murders take place is another character in the book.
It is large, fancy, beautiful, comfortable, luxurious – all that you would expect – and it is also described as atmospheric, creepy, “wrong” and out of place.
Perhaps – and this is my own theory – it can be seen as a metaphor for New Zealand’s reckoning with its colonial past?
Things can be beautiful in themselves, while feeling out of place, or inappropriate for the environment. I certainly get that impression, both from the house itself, and from the (also beautiful) British family, sadly and unsuccessfully trying to force their Britishness onto their new environment.
Red herrings abound. The last third of the book is a wild ride with twists and shocks galore.
It keeps you guessing right until the end. This is my type of mystery; a modern version of a whodunnit, readable, entertaining, exciting, and just the tiniest bit unnerving. I could not put it down!
Four and a half stars.
