BETTER THE BLOOD (2022)
By Michael Te Arawa Bennett
Atlantic Monthly Press, 336 pages
★★★★★
The cover figure is a koru.
The opening chapter of Better the Blood might sound familiar. The year is 1863, and six white men pose for a photograph with the dark-skinned man they’ve just lynched hanging in the background. But this is New Zealand, not the American South.
In Máori, the phrase n tea hi ka tahuna he ahi an loosely translates “in the fire a fire is lit,” an expression that, in context, means violence begets more violence. Better the Blood is a gripping murder mystery that also highlights profound differences in how New Zealand and the U.S. respond to violence. Without giving too much away, there is a world of difference between the American public’s “an eye for an eye” measure of justice* and the Máori standard of utu, a restoration of balance.
From 1863 we fast forward to 2023, when Detective Senior Sgt. Hana Westerman is outraged when Patrick Jonathan Thompson walks away with a warning and a chance of expunging his record despite his conviction for raping a Máori woman. The judge, no doubt in a side deal with Thompson’s expensive counsel, incredulously declares he doesn’t wish to ruin Thompson’s law school plans! Hana knows full well that were the attacker Máori and the victim Pákeha (white), the rapist would be in prison. As a furher insult, Thompson taunts Westerman in the car park, threatens to rape her daughter, smashes his own face into a pillar, and blames her for breaking his nose. No witnesses and it’s his word against hers, she is also Máori, and is suspended.
To say Hana has a lot on her plate doesn’t begin to get it. A tip leads her to an abandoned building where she and Stan, a younger detective, find a bound junkie hanging from a ceiling beam. Oddly, he was dead from an 11 centimeter (about four inches) wound before he was hanged. Shortly thereafter a developer leaps to his death from a tall Auckland building–or so the first report goes until Hana notices his puncture wound and discovers a spiral in blood. If this weren’t enough, her adolescent daughter Addison has just moved in. Hana is divorced, though Jaye Westeman is also her boss. The two remain friendly, but Addison is tired of hearing Jaye’s Pákeha partner pontificate about social justice in ways she finds patronizing–not to mention that’s Addison’s turf when she performs as a rapper.
Several more bodies appear before Hana recognizes the link between the body count and the1863 photograph. For North American readers, a bit of history is in order. In the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, many Máori iwi (tribes) ceded land to the British Crown in exchange for protection from other erstwhile European imperialists What ensued is analogous to treaties with North American Indians. What does “cede” mean and how extensive did Máori** believe it to be? It remains a contentious issue; the Waitangi Tribunal settles disputes, but Máori now own less than six percent of New Zealand’s land.
Someone has decided that the tribunal and utu are at odds. Hana, Jaye, and Stan soon identify the serial killer as Poata Raki. Once exposed, he begins to text Hana, who bears some major identity guilt. Eighteen years earlier, when she was a rookie cop, Hana took part in dragging Máori protestors off government land atop Auckland’s Mount Suffolk, which a local iwi regards as sacred. Its members and other Máori–including Addison when a YouTube video of the protest surfaces–regard Hana as kápapa (traitor). Hana fears they may be right, but does Poata’s concept of utu justify murder?
This dilemma, the identity of the victims, and Poata’s moral code lead some to admire him, even when thinking he is misguided. Better the Blood adopts the desperation, escalation, and beat-the-clock devices common in crime novels, but Bennett skillfully constructs back stories that add richness and depth to the major characters. If you ascribe to eye-for-an-eye justice you might applaud Poata’s assertion, “The time of the lamb is over…. It is time to return to the old ways. Of utu. To avenge that which has never been avenged.” Among Máori, the word whenua means both land and placenta. What is the best way to replenish (“better”) Máori? You will be surprised.
Bennett is a New Zealand director and writer. His English-sounding name notwithstanding, he is also Máori. His surname, Addison’s, and Hana’s—as well as a non-binary lesser character subtly infuse the novel with another knotty issue: identity in the multicultural present. In short, Bennett’s novel is a cut in complexity above standard mystery fare.
Rob Weir
* Many Americans believe an eye for an eye is Biblical. Nope! It’s from Hammurabi’s Code.
** Máori is both singular and plural.
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