Better the Blood

Māori screenwriter and director Bennett took the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Award for best nonfiction with In Dark Places. As grounded in reality as his true-crime writing, this debut mystery employs complex characters and unsparing facts to explore the marginalized experiences of Indigenous peoples in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Because of her Māori heritage and her role 18 years earlier in brutally “pacifying” Māori protesters, detective Hana Westerman attracts unwanted attention from a serial murderer whose victims share one trait: they are direct descendants of six British colonists immortalized in daguerreotype beside the hanging body of a rangatira, a chief of great stature. Listeners will likely appreciate hearing te reo Māori vocabulary pronounced flawlessly by narrators Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are, both experienced Māori actors. Narrating Hana’s investigation, McDowell creates a sympathetic detective struggling to balance her identities, including being a mother to a rebellious teenage daughter who is adamantly anti-cop. Poata James Raki, an academic turned killer, receives an equally insightful treatment from Te Are in his resonant supporting narration of Raki’s motives and actions.