Better the Blood

Written by Michael Bennett

Narrated by Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are

An absorbing, clever debut thriller that speaks to the longstanding injustices faced by New Zealand’s indigenous peoples, by an acclaimed Maori screenwriter and director

A tenacious Maori detective, Hana Westerman is juggling single motherhood, endemic prejudice, and the pressures of her career in Auckland CIB. Led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man ritualistically hanging in a secret room and a puzzling inward-curving inscription. Delving
into the investigation after a second, apparently unrelated, death, she uncovers a chilling connection to a historic crime: 160 years before, during the brutal and bloody British colonization of New Zealand, a troop of colonial soldiers unjustly executed a Maori chief.

Hana recognizes the murders as utu—the Maori tradition of rebalancing, whether for a personal slight or, now, for a crime committed eight generations ago. There were six soldiers in the British troop, and since descendants of two of the soldiers have been killed, four more potential
murders remain. Hana realizes she is hunting New Zealand’s first serial killer.

The pursuit soon becomes frighteningly personal, recalling the painful event, two decades before, when Hana, then a new cop, was part of a police team sent to end by force a land rights occupation by indigenous peoples on the same ancestral mountain where the chief was killed, calling once
more into questionher loyalty to her roots. Worse still, a genealogical link to the British soldiers brings the case terrifyingly close to Hana’s own family. Twisty and thoughtprovoking, Better the Blood is the debut of a remarkable new talent in crime fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781705087664

Michael Bennett

Michael Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue) is an award-winning screenwriter, director and author. His first book, a non-fiction work telling the true story of New Zealand’s worst miscarriage of justice, In Dark Places, won Best Non-Fiction Book at the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards. Michael's second book, Helen and the Go-Go Ninjas, is a time-travel graphic novel co-authored with Ant Sang. Better the Blood, the first Hana Westerman thriller, was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction/Ockham New Zealand Book Award, as well as for the Audio Book of the Year at the Capital Crime Fingerprint Awards and Best First Mystery Novel at the Barry Awards. It was also longlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Debut Dagger and was a finalist for Best Novel at the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards, where it won the award for Best First Novel. Return to Blood, the second novel in the acclaimed series, won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel in 2025.   Michael's short and feature films have won awards internationally and have screened at numerous festivals, including Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, Locarno, New York, London and Melbourne. Michael is the 2020 recipient of the Te Aupounamu Māori Screen Excellence Award, in recognition of members of the Māori filmmaking community who have made high-level contributions to screen storytelling.     He lives in Auckland, Aotearoa (New Zealand), with his partner Jane, and children Tīhema, Māhina and Matariki.

Reviews for Better the Blood

[Jeanenne Robinson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Debut
Informative
Relationship complications
Main detective balances several roles
Diverse characters
Tragic backstory

[Gloriana · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you want a thought provoking fascinating mystery - try this! Highly recommended!

This is such a richly textured and engrossing story. Hana is an amazing character. I appreciated the narrative of this story as the driving force of who she is and the choices she’s made.

1. Before. 2. The Tipping Point. 3. After.

While she has to grabble with her past, present & future, so does the killer she is seeking. Once a brilliant lawyer & passionate teacher, he isn’t anything like the serial killer he has become. And yet he is the same person. And he has a past grievance with Hana.

The resounding question of “On which side does evil lie?” Is haunting.

This is an exciting mystery but it’s also a deep exploration of the painful ramifications of history.

[maydacat_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The core of this novel centers around New Zealand’s Māori peoples. It deals with the injustices they have long faced. 160 years after a Māori chief was unjustly executed, similar crimes are being committed. A Māori detective, Hana Westerman, recognizes the connection between the current crimes and the historic one, and stops at nothing to end this killer’s quest of revenge, especially when her own family is threatened. Hana is undoubtedly the hero of this tale. The story is enlightening, if hard to read, concerning the murders and the injustices. The audio version was especially well performed.

[booklover1801 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Better the Blood," by Michael Bennett, is a violent and intense thriller set in Auckland, New Zealand. Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman, who is of Maori ancestry, is ashamed of her actions eighteen years earlier, when she was a junior officer on the force. Her superiors ordered her to arrest men and women who were peacefully protesting the confiscation of their land by the British colonizers. Hana dragged a Maori woman off the sacred mountain where she had been standing vigil. To this day, Hana's people consider her a traitor. Now Hana becomes the center of a new investigation when a serial killer sends her videos with clues concerning his crimes. He picks off his victims while Hana, her estranged husband Detective Inspector Jaye Hamilton, and their colleagues try to identify this merciless and methodical predator and apprehend him before he strikes again.

This is not a conventional mystery, since Bennett identifies the villain long before the book's finale. Instead, it is a multilayered and poignant novel that explores the competing interests of indigenous people and the colonizers who believe they have the right to uproot them. This book is suffused with the history of the Maori and is enriched by Bennett's use of the Maori language. Furthermore, there are heartrending scenes in which Hana clashes with her fiery and unconventional daughter, Addison, a seventeen-year-old who is furious at her mother's for betraying her heritage. Hana is an intelligent, intuitive, and stubborn protagonist who faces challenging situations head-on.

Bennett's powerful debut has a beautifully descriptive setting, sharply written dialogue, fascinating and varied characters, and a well-constructed plot. Hana's career is in jeopardy thanks to a felon who claims she attacked him physically. In addition, she decides to revisit her past and make amends for what she now perceives as grievous mistakes. In "Better than Blood," Michael Bennett insightfully explores the desire of native inhabitants to be treated fairly and with dignity. He also poses the question of whether it is more satisfying to strike out against one's oppressors or choose a path of non-violence. The finale leaves us eager to read the next installment in what promises to be an outstanding series.

[smith.erin71 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really loved this book, even though it made me cry (a lot). It would make a great movie as well.

[zachmontana · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just returned from New Zealand where I bought this book. Loved learning about Maori culture and seeing how it is integrated into this country, Aotearao! This book is a fantastic find for combination Detective Thriller and education on the New Zealand Culture today resulting from past Colonial conquest and rule. In some ways they seem more progressive in integrating the Native people with the European invaders than America, but this book helps the outsider understand for the Maori it is not perfect by any means. Well written and continually intriguing this novel is a stand alone great read!

[bookappeal · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting setting and characters. Readers will probably learn something about the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, the injustices they suffered in the past and the systemic racism that keeps them at a disadvantage in the present. The story is well-plotted and puts an ethical twist on the serial killer trope. Assuming this is the launch of a series character, the author has set up a good launch pad for a character who can explore the gray areas of being a female Maori police officer in further books.

[twink_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Better the Blood is the first book in a new series from Michael Bennett.

Hana Westerman is a Detective Senior Sergeant with the Auckland Criminal Investigation Bureau. She receives an anonymous video that leads to the discovery of a secret room - and the dead man inside that room. When there's another murder, Hana realizes they may be linked. And that there's a larger plan at work here...

Bennett has penned a good police procedural featuring a likable, believable protagonist in Hana. I did have issues with her daughter and her actions.

It was the exploration of the culture of, and the injustices done to the Māori people that grabbed my attention. And saddened me more than I can say. For me, this was the larger part of the book, with the current day crime taking a backseat to the historical crimes. Better the Blood is a bit of a slow burn, with some points being referenced many times.

I did choose to listen to Better the Blood. I've often said that I become more immersed in a book when I listen and that was certainly the case with this book. The narrators - Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are were excellent. Both of them captured the tone of the book's plotting with their voices. Both of them speak the Māori language and the tone of the book is enhanced with that facet.

[eyes92c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The past intrudes! Crime Thriller!

An amazing tale blending modern day New Zealand, the past and the Treaty of Waitangi, with a spate of killings that puzzles Māori Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman.
During the investigation, somehow she finds a link between this death and the suicide of someone else a few days later. What the connection points are between the victims she has no idea, but as the situation escalates she is thrown back to her days as a young police officer being forced to break up a land rights rally at Mt Suffolk. Something she’s felt sorry about for years. When the investigation cuts close to home Hana is distressed and determined to fight through.
An amazing story with the past intruding on the present, carrying forward the notion of those of today being held responsible for the past. It seem the Māori tradition of rebalancing, of Utu, might be in play.

A Grove Atlantic ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is unusual for me to read a book in a single day, but that is what happened here. And I came away feeling that I had learnt so much, particularly about what has happened to the Maori people in New Zealand.

The setting is Auckland. The scenario a killer who wants his crimes noticed by one person in particular, so he sens her videos alerting her. And Hana Westerman is clever enough to work where those videos have been shot, and then eventually to learn what is behind them.

An absolutely fascinating read.

[pgchuis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

This was more about the history of the wrongs done by white settlers to the Maori than it was a crime novel. At times I thought the Maori elements were well done (the idea that Maori police officers would be selected against their knowledge and will to lead the removal of Maori protesters from their traditional territories was shocking), but at others it felt a bit as if we were being given mini lectures. Also, the author used Maori words and then (randomly about a page later as my Kindle set the book out) they were translated, which was frustrating.

The mystery of what was going on was revealed half way through and after that it was more of a thriller than a police procedural. I found the behaviour of Hana's daughter incomprehensible.

This was OK, but not an effective crime novel for me.