This second instalment in experienced Kiwi author Catherine Lea’s police procedural series starring tough, middle-aged investigator DI Nyree Bradshaw of the Far North CIB, shows a storyteller really hitting her stride. After several mysteries and thrillers featuring northern hemisphere settings and heroes, including a trilogy starring US socialite-turned-sleuth Elizabeth McClaine, Lea ‘came home’ with DI Bradshaw in The Water’s Dead.

This time Bradshaw and her team are faced with the puzzling murder of a local loner and hoarder, who is brutally garrotted in her own (overflowing with junk and rubbish) home. A second murder complicates matters. Does a list of names of former foster kids have anything to do with the killings? Meanwhile, other police colleagues are focused on the missing daughter of a local councillor, and Bradshaw must also deal with the fallout of some life-changing news dropped on her by son Tony, who is in prison for murder.

Lea does a great job soaking readers in the Northland setting, including the poverty and problems – drugs, gangs, mental health, greed – lurking beneath the picturesque region’s tourist-enticing landscapes. Better Left Dead is a very good read where Lea makes readers care about the people in the story as much as finding the killer, and is hopefully a sign of things to come for a heroine, cast, and setting that deserves an ongoing series.

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

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