As the sun goes down on a clear Christchurch autumn evening, coloured lights flicked on around Cathedral Square and a buzzing crowd headed into the Tautoru / TSB Space at Tūranga. The stars of this WORD event - Aotearoa's own Michael Bennett and Irish author Dervla McTiernan. These two top crime writers were joined by Liz Grant to lead the conversation.
WORD Programme director Kiran Dass introduced the event, thanking HarperCollins New Zealand for their support, and also Creative New Zealand, Christchurch City Libraries and the Rata Foundation. The University Bookshop was on site, selling books by Dervla and Michael. As an exciting extra, the audience is tantalised with a raffle for a stack of books.
Liz Grant introduced Michael and Dervla, mentioning she enjoyed prepping by reading two authors new to her. I was already familiar with Michael's work, and enjoyed researching Dervla McTiernan. It's always great to read new authors. Both writers are here to promote their new books, Carved in Blood, the third instalment of Michael's Hana Westerman series and The Unquiet Grave, the fourth book in Dervla's Cormac Reilly series.
It was interesting to discover that Michael and Dervla had more than one thing in common: their books include stroppy teenage girl characters, and there are similarities in the placement of the bodies! In Return to Blood, Hana's daughter Addison discovers a body in the black sand of a West Coast dune, while in The Unquiet Grave, a turf-cutter's daughter finds a body in a peat bog.
Dervla read an extract from The Unquiet Grave, the moment her character Leonie finds the body. There is humour in the profile of Leonie, while Dervla explains that the idea of Bog Bodies - ancient, perfectly preserved remains up to two thousand years old were a prompt for the story of a much younger body buried in the same way. Unsure if there were any more Cormac Reilly stories, this subject motivated Dervla to add a fourth book to the series. She loves series fiction:
"The pleasure of something familiar but new."
Then we hear about Michael's new book. 'The Past isn't dead, it's just waiting...' The cover of Carved in Blood bears this sinister banner. Hana Westerman left the police force and gone back to Tātā Bay, working with youth. Her daughter Addison lives with her non-binary partner, Plus One. Michael reads an excerpt from his second novel in the series Return to Blood. It's a mother's worst nightmare, when her daughter finds the body in the sand dunes. Hana's training kicks in, noting the sex of the victim from the shape of her pelvic bone, and evidence of restraints on the wrists. It is a repeat of an historic crime: the same place that a schoolmate of Hana's met a violent death twenty years before. Hana's struggle to avoid involvement in the case adds tension to the story, says Liz Grant. Noticing the similarity with Dervla's book, Michael quips "it's as if we both (Dervla and Michael) put the same events into Chat GPT..."
Discussion turns from writers to readers. Michael thanks the audience for buying and reading their books - if it weren't for them, Dervla and he wouldn't have a job. "It's good to see the face of our employers."
Liz asks about Michael's decision to add footnotes to translate te Reo Māori words used in his books. It's for his international readers: the series is published by Simon and Schuster in the U.K., and Grove Martin in the U.S. He's not in favour of glossaries, feeling they detract from the flow of the story. Dervla McTiernan doesn't explain the Irish Gaelic in the Cormac Reilly series, leaving readers to work out the meaning by the context of the words. Her publishers were worried it could jar an American audience but Dervla resisted:
"Maybe we underestimate the audience?"
More similarities surfaced between the two novelists. Neither started out as writers. Dervla was a commercial lawyer for twelve years, before the pandemic decimated her practice. From what she says, the situation was heartbreakingly dire in Ireland, forcing a move to Western Australia - the red hills a massive contrast to the green hills of Éire. They chose Perth, because Brisbane has flying cockroaches. Now they have a pet snake just in case.
Did Dervla always want to write? She's always loved books, but was unaware of how much goes into writing a book: she actually wanted to be an actor! Then two momentous things happened: she received interest from a publisher in one of her manuscripts, and was treated for a brain tumour. She's been writing bestsellers ever since.
And Michael? When he grew up, he had no idea there was such a thing as a creative writing industry in New Zealand. He always wanted to write, while he was growing up in Motueka, but thought it required genius! So he went to Perth and studied psychology. His interest was piqued again when he heard a screenwriter speak about crafting images that explore imagery of a character's life. Michael, a screenwriter first, thinks visually. When he writes, there's a film scene playing in his head. He begins with "transcribing images" then adds dialogue. A screenplay, he says, is "the most structured writing in the planet, second only to haiku".
Michael shared a secret of film structure where at eight minutes, fifteen and twenty-three minutes, a pivotal event happens. That works well in crime fiction too.
Bennett's first book, In Dark Places, about the wrongful arrest of Teina Pora for the 1992 murder of Susan Burdett, won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Non-Fiction Book in 2017. It was based on a documentary Bennett made with his partner Jane Holland; The Confessions of Prisoner T, which uncovered new evidence that overturned Teina's conviction.
"It's life-changing what writing can achieve," observes Bennett.
Pora was arrested after offering information on the case, in need of the reward money. "He couldn't even describe the victim correctly," says Bennett.
Bennett describes a moment when visiting Pora in prison, where Pora, instead of squishing a ladybird that had landed on the table, gently offered it his finger, then gently blew on it to encourage it to fly to a freedom not granted to himself. Teina Pora's case shows how our justice system and colonisation disadvantage Māori.
What drew Dervla to crime fiction? It's simple, she says. She had the 'seed' of a story: the characters Maura and Jack, and a setting for The Ruin which she wrote to answer her questions about the characters: why did Maura have to raise her little brother? Someone needed to rescue them, the obvious person a policeman. enter Cormac Reilly, and the story become a mystery novel.
Here we note another similarity between the two authors: they both come from families with seven siblings, who they looked out for and helped raise.
"A lot of who we are slips into the writing," says Dervla.
Her new stand-alone novel, What Happened to Nina? about a perfect couple who go hiking, only for one of them to return alone. It's about the fierce love of parents, their concerns as children leave the nest to become adults. The question is, says McTiernan, where do you stop, if you believe your son is innocent, or if you're desperate to find your daughter? It's a study of the psychology, featuring the perspectives of different characters. Nina, and The Murder Rule are the only books set outside of Ireland (Vermont, then Maine and Virginia). McTiernan has a three-book contract for books set out of Ireland, she says. She didn't however, realise there would be a five-flight trip to Vermont from Australia!
Bennett's character Hana shares his Irish mother's last name, Westerman. She's a combination of strong women in his life: his mother, aunties and daughter. Hana is a justice seeker, not a career seeker, says Bennett. Colonisation and decolonisation are strong themes in the Hana Westerman series. Hana's history in the police was conflicted: she was part of an all-Māori front line pitted against her own people during an occupation of Māori land at Takaparawhau / Bastion Point. Her great shame, although young and green, is that she didn't challenge this decision.
This theme continues in Bennett's writing: "it's impossible not to, when you're a Māori writer, react to social media that pollutes the landscape," he observes. When writing, issues come in because:
"You're reacting to what's going on around you in real time".
Liz Grant thanks these wonderfully articulate authors, then it's time for the raffle draw and book signings. Dennis is the lucky winner of a stack of books (including Michael and Dervla's latest novels) wrapped in caution tape, and lots of the audience get to meet Michael and Dervla and get their books signed.
More Michael Bennett
Find Michael Bennett's books in our collection
Read Fee's review of Better the Blood
More Dervla McTiernan
Find Dervla McTiernan's books in our collection
Photos
WORD Christchurch
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