Karen
Cristina Sanders is a new to me author who has written a number of books in the past along the same lines of ŌKIWI BROWN - a fictionalised version of historical events that incorporate early tales (tall and true) of Aotearoa. This story is told in a series of anecdotes, incorporating the story of a man, a waler who washed up on the eastern shores of Port Nicholson many years ago, in the early days of colonial settlement. He sets himself up with a pub and makes a home with a woman found abandoned on the nearby beach, quickly developing a reputation for evil and nasty going's on.
The set up to this is an unusual one, perhaps not so out of the ordinary for Cristina Sanders if the blurbs for her other books (MRS JEWELL AND THE WRECK OF THE GENERAL GRANT, JERNINGHAM and DISPLACED) are anything to go by, although this one appears to be the only novel that so directly connects the possibility of past and present murders, and a potential character from history.
Told with incredible strength, and a profound sense of place, ŌKIWI BROWN never shies away from the intrinsic evil of that unknown waler, or the difficulties of life in the new colony, whilst weaving in enough of the story of Burke and Hare to give the assumption of identity some credence. Overall it's well depicted, although populated by a lot of characters and some very disparate stories. All in all, it was increasingly disconcerting to think about the possibility of who else washed up on what shores in the days of very limited communications.
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
Cristina Sanders is a new to me author who has written a number of books in the past along the same lines of ŌKIWI BROWN - a fictionalised version of historical events that incorporate early tales (tall and true) of Aotearoa. This story is told in a series of anecdotes, incorporating the story of a man, a waler who washed up on the eastern shores of Port Nicholson many years ago, in the early days of colonial settlement. He sets himself up with a pub and makes a home with a woman found abandoned on the nearby beach, quickly developing a reputation for evil and nasty going's on.
The set up to this is an unusual one, perhaps not so out of the ordinary for Cristina Sanders if the blurbs for her other books (MRS JEWELL AND THE WRECK OF THE GENERAL GRANT, JERNINGHAM and DISPLACED) are anything to go by, although this one appears to be the only novel that so directly connects the possibility of past and present murders, and a potential character from history.
Told with incredible strength, and a profound sense of place, ŌKIWI BROWN never shies away from the intrinsic evil of that unknown waler, or the difficulties of life in the new colony, whilst weaving in enough of the story of Burke and Hare to give the assumption of identity some credence. Overall it's well depicted, although populated by a lot of characters and some very disparate stories. All in all, it was increasingly disconcerting to think about the possibility of who else washed up on what shores in the days of very limited communications.
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.