Michael Bennett Shortlisted At The New Zealand Book Awards

8 March 2023

We’re pleased to announce that Michael Bennett's Better The Blood has been shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize For Fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards. This is an annual award for the best contemporary adult fiction novel. You can find more information about Better The Blood below.

Better The Blood by Michael Bennett
Published in Large Print, CD and MP3 CD Audiobook in September 2022.
Hana Westerman is a tenacious Maori detective juggling single motherhood and the pressures of her career in Auckland's Central Investigation Branch. When she's led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man hanging in a secret room. As Hana and her team work to track down the culprit, other deaths lead her to think that they are searching for New Zealand's first serial killer. With little to go on, Hana must use all her experience as a police officer to try and find a motive to these apparently unrelated murders. What she eventually discovers is a link to an historic crime that leads back to the brutal bloody colonisation of New Zealand. Then the pursuit becomes frighteningly personal, and Hana realises that, whilst her heritage is key to finding the killer, their agenda of revenge may include her - and her family...