Review: ASSIGNED TO MURDER by Trish McCormack

Former Hokitika journalist and Abel Tasman NP worker Trish McCormack combines her two great passions in her debut novel; crime fiction and the uniqueness and stunning scenery of the West Coast.

Young glacier guide Philippa Barnes is still recovering from her parents’ sudden death when her old flatmate Kirsten, a journalist, is murdered near a picturesque lake. When Kirsten’s brother Jack asks Philippa to help dig deeper into what Kirsten was investigating, Philippa finds herself on a treacherous journey involving family secrets, human frailties, and long-buried crimes. At the same time a diarist tries to come to terms with a past horror.

Good murder mysteries have strong characters as well as puzzling plots. Overall, McCormack does well on that front. Although I was a little slow to warm to Philippa (who seemed a touch annoying at first), her depth and complexity comes out as the story progresses, and there is an interesting and well-drawn wider cast. McCormack has a nice touch for the emotional intricacies of human relationships, although her characters’ dialogue is at times a little unrealistic, filled with more exposition than subtext. More absorbing slow burn than cracking page-turner, Assigned to Murder trundles along for a while before hitting its stride, then finishing strongly.

Overall, there are plenty of good things (some very good) about this debut effort, and I look forward to seeing what McCormack comes up with next.

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This review was first published in the December 2010 issue of WildTomato, the magazine of Nelson and Marlborough. You can read more about this terrific magazine here.

New Zealand crime fiction in the news, and more reviews...

Yesterday I updated the "Other reviews" linkbar page above, which focuses on links to external crime fiction (particularly Kiwi) reviews, with a few new/recent reviews.

Along with my own recent Weekend Herald review of #1 bestseller THE FALLEN by Ben Sanders, and my Reviewing the Evidence review of POSTCARD KILLERS by James Patterson and Liza Marklund, Eurocrime review of CAPTURED by Neil Cross, and Latitude review of CONTAINMENT by Vanda Symon, I've also linked to reviews by several other people and publications of some recent New Zealand crime fiction. Hopefully this may help you get a better idea about some of the recent Kiwi crime fiction that perhaps you might like to give a go yourself.

I've added links to new reviews of Alix Bosco's SLAUGHTER FALLS (Otago Daily Times review, Latitude magazine review), Paul Thomas's THE IHAKA TRILOGY (AustCrimeFiction, M/C Reviews), and Ben Sanders' THE FALLEN (Nelson Mail review), all of which were released in the past couple of months.

One Kiwi crime novel that came out within the last year that I haven't yet talked about much here on Crime Watch is ASSIGNED TO MURDER, the debut thriller from Trish McCormack. I've just picked up a copy of this for myself from Page & Blackmore Booksellers when I was down in Nelson last weekend, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

The tagline for ASSIGNED TO MURDER is "A Tale of Death and Revenge on the South Island's West Coast", and the blurb reads "As Philippa Barnes, a young West Coast glacier guide, is getting over the accidental death of her parents whilst climbing, Kirsten, a journalist friend of hers, is murdered beside nearby Lake Kanieri. Philippa teams up with Kirsten's brother Jack to try and find out what Kirsten was investigating."

Trish McCormack is a Wellington-based author who grew up on the West Coast. Earlier this month Joanna Davis of The Dominion Post, one of the major newspapers in New Zealand, featured ASSIGNED TO MURDER for the 'Your Weekend' magazine in the weekend edition. You can read Davis's full article here.