Our April book club selection is Michael Bennet’s detective novel Better the Blood. It’s about Hana Westerman, a Māori police detective who is hunting down a serial killer before more deaths occur. The killer, Poata Raki, is on a mission to right the wrongs of colonialism in New Zealand. Hana puts two and two together when she realizes all of the victims are descendants of the colonial soldiers who murdered a Māori chief 160 years prior.

Angeline Boulley, author of the YA novel The Firekeeper’s Daughter and the forthcoming book Warrior Girl Unearthed, and Steph Matuku, a New Zealand author who writes YA books centered on Māori characters, join us. We discuss the parallels to the history of colonialism in the United States and the complexities of the serial killer’s mission. We get into all of the spoilers in this conversation, so if you have not read the book yet, you can go back and listen to our spoiler-free interview with Michael Bennett before this one!

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