Containment

By Vanda Symon

Dunedin’s favourite young police officer Sam Shephard is drawn into a perplexing investigation when a series of shipping containers wash up on a sleepy New Zealand beach, and then a body is discovered…

‘Fast-moving New Zealand procedural … the Edinburgh of the south has never been more deadly’ Ian Rankin

'If you like taut, pacy thrillers with a wonderful sense of place, this is the book for you’ Liam McIlvanney

‘A sassy heroine, fabulous sense of place, and rip-roaring stories with a twist. Perfect curl-up-on-the-sofa reading’ Kate Mosse

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Chaos reigns in the sleepy village of Aramoana on the New Zealand coast, when a series of shipping containers wash up on the beach and looting begins.

Detective Constable Sam Shephard experiences the desperation of the scavengers first-hand, and ends up in an ambulance, nursing her wounds and puzzling over an assault that left her assailant for dead.

What appears to be a clear-cut case of a cargo ship running aground soon takes a more sinister turn when a skull is found in the sand, and the body of a diver is pulled from the sea … a diver who didn’t die of drowning…

As first officer at the scene, Sam is handed the case, much to the displeasure of her superiors, and she must put together an increasingly confusing series of clues to get to the bottom of a mystery that may still have more victims…

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‘Vanda Symon’s work resembles Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum … she knows how to tell a good story and the NZ setting adds spice’ The Times

‘It is Symon’s copper Sam, self-deprecating and very human, who represents the writer’s real achievement’ Guardian

‘Antipodean-set crime is riding high thanks to the likes of Jane Harper, and fans of The Dry will love Vanda Symon’ Red Magazine

‘With a twisty plot, a protagonist who shines and beautifully written observations of the cruellest things … this is crime fiction at its best’ Kiwi Crime

‘Atmospheric, gripping and incredibly satisfying’ Random Things through My Letterbox

‘Raw, honest, punchy and smirky … if you enjoy a quick-firing, fast-moving tale with a tight storyline, then Containment could be for you’ LoveReading

• Language: English
• Publisher: ORENDA BOOKS
• Release date: Jan 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913193201

Vanda Symon

Vanda Symon is a crime writer, TV presenter and radio host from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the chair of the Otago Southland branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. The Sam Shephard series has climbed to number one on the New Zealand bestseller list, and also been shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award for best crime novel. She currently lives in Dunedin, with her husband and two sons.

Reviews for Containment

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When the container ship the Lauretia Express runs aground near Dunedin and spills containers across the Aramoana sands the city's normally staid and law abiding denizens turn out in force to apply their own rules of salvage. Detective Constable Sam Shepherd can't believe the pillage she is witnessing. Nor does she expect to be walloped when she intervenes in a squabble between two looters. To complicate things Sam's assailant very nearly dies in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and Sam saves his life.One of the containers held a well documented antique collection, now widely dispersed, which the owner is anxious to recover. The discovery a week or so later of a body in the sea off Aramoana, with all the signs of foul play, adds another complicating element.And if work is not complicated enough, Sam's personal life hypes up a notch when her boyfriend announces he has applied to come to work in Dunedin, and she's not at all sure she wants him that close.CONTAINMENT is #3 in Vanda Symon's Sam Shepherd series. I thought there were elements of humour in this one that I had not noticed in the earlier novels, OVERKILL and THE RINGMASTER. Sam Shepherd is a likeable, feisty character who doesn't always make the wisest decisions. She is constantly in trouble with her section boss D.I.Johns but then she often causes headaches for him.I must admit there were times when I wondered if a detective constable would really behave that way, would really take that action on herself, but those slight stretches of credibility aside, CONTAINMENT is a well plotted page turner. I like the way the character of Sam Shepherd is developing and I think New Zealander Vanda Symon is an author well worth keeping an eye on. According to a promo in the back of CONTAINMENT we can expect a fourth title in the series.

[austcrimefiction · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

CONTAINMENT is the third in the Sam Shephard series from New Zealand writer Vanda Symon. It's rapidly stepped up to be one of my all time favourite series for a whole bunch of reasons.Firstly these are truly humorous books. Subtly, ever so slightly tongue in cheek, the humour is both self-deprecating and tension alleviating. My favourite sort. Sam's voice is particularly appealing - as she busily beats herself up mentally, leaving the physical assault to the scavengers on the beach in the case of CONTAINMENT. As mentioned in earlier reviews - because the books are told from Sam's point of view, her self-deprecation and self-analysis is part of what alleviates any sense of myopia or self-servitude that can sometimes occur with that viewpoint.Secondly they are solid, believable, twisty and nicely complex plots. They are particularly believable and realistic in the setting in which the action takes place. Symon's small town or country New Zealand is a place where the crimes, the perpetrators, the cops and the victims all fit perfectly. Often the action starts out small-time and stays that way, in other cases things escalate rapidly, frequently slightly out of control and mostly inexplicably until everything just explodes around the cops and perpetrators ears! Lastly, but not least of all, there are great characters in these books. The stand out is obviously Sam Shephard herself. The country cop who has moved to the bigger city, but not lost that practical, self-deprecating, country sensibility. Her awareness (and willingness to beat herself up) for her shortcomings, her understanding and forgiveness and care for those who surround her is .. here's those words again .. realistic and believable. Sam is definitely the sort of cop that you can well imagine running into at a crime scene, at the pub, in a hospital bed. Because she is a little accident prone. Mostly because of enthusiasm and concern for the job, partially because of a stubborn refusal to think things through totally, Sam spends more than a bit of time in her own physical or mental wars. Just to add to the mix, the course of true love gets smacked around the head pretty regularly by Sam, and the bosom of her loving family has it's own twists and turns.Whilst Sam is definitely the star of her own show in these books, the supporting cast isn't one dimensional or off-camera. Her interactions with the other cops in her team, her boss, her parents, cop boyfriend and best friend Maggie are very good. Particularly her relationship with friend, flatmate and voice of reason Maggie. It's actually a fantastic element of these books - to have a strong, supportive and brutally honest relationship between two women drawn so clearly is a relatively rare occurrence, and it's done extremely well in these books - although Maggie is possibly slightly less present in CONTAINMENT than I recall her in the earlier books.For all the gushing of this review, these books aren't just light-hearted entertainment. There are often elements in the plots which are unexpected, unpleasant even - characters that are expendable, deaths that are confrontational or emotional. The light-hearted touch of Symon doesn't conceal the reality of criminal activity, murder or mayhem. It just makes the lesson slightly more palatable.