#Blogtour #Review - Prey by Vanda Symon

Prey (Sam Shephard, 6)

Vanda Symon
Orenda Books, 15 August 2024
Available as: PB, 278pp audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(PB): 97819116788220

I'm grateful to Orenda for sending me a copy of Prey to consider for review, and to Anne for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

There is a particular comfort in returning a well-loved and long running series - none more so than with Symon's books featuring New Zealand detective Sam Shephard. Over the course of five stories so far, and now a sixth, we've seen Sam progress from a reckless, not so say rash young woman working in a remote town as the only outpost of law and order to a detective in Dunedin. In the last book, Expectant, she was heavily pregnant. In Prey, Sam is the new mother of Amelia, just returned to work, and Symon usefully explores the ups and downs of this - the tiredness, the child who won't be put down when one wishes to eat or take a bath, the nappy changing... there's a particular incident of a "poonami" that I think all new parents will relate to (we have curtains that never recovered). 

All this as Sam is tasked with reopening an especially tricky cold case. DI Johns, also know as The Boss and by a host of less repeatable epithets, has asked her to pick up an investigation form 25 years ago, the murder of a priest on the cathedral steps, no less. It's a case which requires particular tact as Johns is connected to it himself. And it's one which awakens dark memories for Sam from her own early life.

If you're a regular reader of this series you'll know already that Sam is at her best when up against it: every problem here - the lack of forensic evidence, pressure from her superiors, vanished witnesses, that creeping miasma of unease that she feels as she climbs the cathedral steps - just spurs her on to try harder, find new angles, try different things. So as the story unfolds, Sam's re-examination of witnesses, her unpicking of evidence and her posting of awkward questions are just wonderful to see. Symon has a rare skill, the ability to make a situation visible. Without dropping any clunky hints or telling you the answer, she creates, in the reader's head, a kind of hologram, a grasp of all the angles and possibilities. Here, mediated by Sam, we begin to see the strains and tensions that, decades before, led to murder - and their imprint on the witnesses being re-interviewed in the present day.

It is though a nasty, unedifying picture that unfolds, with an apparently loving and supportive community riven by jealousy, judgementalism and old-fashioned patriarchy. As Sam gets deeper into things, she increasingly wonders why she was asked to reopen this case, whether she was ever meant to solve it, and if she does, what the cost may be for all concerned?

All in all this is a taut, compulsive and involving read, a book I more inhaled than read. Weaving together two serious themes, relating to parenting an infant and caring for a teenage daughter, it challenges us as to what is really important in putting a child's needs first - rather than just paying lip service to that - and shows how secrets can undermine the most loving of relationships. (The family of the Revd Mark Freeman in particular seems to have raised the keeping of these to an artform, one matched only by Sam's ability or prise out the truth from reluctant witnesses.)

Prey is another great instalment in this series from Vanda Symon. As I said above, it was marvellous to meet Sam again and to see how her life is changing. But above all this is a scorching and immersive detective story.

For more information about Prey, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy Prey from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, or Waterstones.

#Review - Expectant by Vanda Symon

Expectant (Sam Shephard, 5)    
Vanda Simon
Orenda Books, 16 February 2023
Available as: PB, 246pp, audio, e  
Source: Purchased/ audio subscription
ISBN(PB): 9781914585579

Detective Sam Shephard's latest adventure treads familiar ground in some respects - she's still suffering under DI Johns - but goes to new places in others - the case we follow here is even more personal than usual. Sam is shortly to give birth, so the murder and mutilation of a pregnant woman in a Dunedin backstreet obviously comes very close to home (and gives DI Johns a new excuse to try and shut her out of the investigation).

Beneath the shocking horror, it's a cleverly constructed mystery, Sam's condition however giving her few natural insights into why somebody would do such a thing. That, and DI Johns' success in keeping her away from the centre of things, leaves time and space to explore how Sam is feeling at this juncture in her life: her partner Paul, and her ever disapproving mother, coming and going through the narrative to give us different perspectives. As readers of this series will be aware, Sam's life is never straightforward and we've seen her change from the carefree young woman of the early books to, well, nearly a mother (but emphatically not one who will be a clone of her own mother - the tension between the two is still palpable, even if here things are a bit more peaceable than before).

But Sam being Sam, she's never going to let herself be kept out of things, is she? It's just a matter of interpreting DI Johns' orders creatively... and of not being afraid to have a stand-up slanging match with him when the time comes (go, Sam!) As ever, Sam places her quest for justice ahead of common sense and self-preservation. And you can guess the outcome of that when Johns finds out about it.

All in all, a satisfying and engaging return to one of my favourite detectives doing what she does best - ie causing trouble. This series shows no sign of flagging and I have high hopes that in the next instalment we'll see Sam coping with new complications as a mother and again firmly keeping Johns in his place. 

For more information about Expectant, see the publisher's website here. 

#Blogtour #Review - Containment by Vanda Symon

Cover design by kid-ethic

Containment (Sam Shephard, 3)
Vanda Simon
Orenda Books, 5 March 2020
PB, 262pp, e

I'm grateful to Orenda and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for letting me have an advance copy of Containment and for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.

Welcome to another instalment in the tumultuous private and work life of Samantha (Sam) Shephard, probationary Detective Constable in the Dunedin, New Zealand, police Murder Squad.

The story opens literally with a bang as Sam hurries to intercept looters seeking to profit from after a container ship has run aground. Unfortunately one of them isn't ready to defer before the authority of the Law and she runs into trouble, nursing a headache and other injuries throughout this story.

But that's only the start. A corpse in an advanced state of decay turns up and Sam's grisly, sexist boss DI Johns thinks she's just the right person to witness a most unpleasant recovery and autopsy. And just when she's done the unpleasant part off the job and is getting somewhere with the enquiry, he whisks her away and assigns her drudge work. Sam's also nursing mixed up feelings about boyfriend Paul and has family problems besides so, already stressed, she's not going to take this lying down...

Readers of Symon's previous Sam Shephard stories will be aware that she has a rather... unorthodox... approach to the chain of command, frequently landing herself in trouble, so you can expect fireworks here - though, having said that, she also seems to be learning a little discretion and she's a bit more conscious and calculating here about the liberties she takes with the law. I think that's a good thing in this particular story, it means there is less time taken upon by carpetings from DI Johns and more devoted to unpicking the mystery, which is a pretty knotty one. The murder victim here was known to many, but as the centre of a group of Bohemian students who spend much of their time drugged out, it becomes hard to establish who saw him last and when - the days do merge into one another.

For much of the book it's a frustrating trail that Sam has to follow - even when she's allowed to - and Symon must have had a lot of fun designing the sequence of classes, loose ends and red herrings that has DC Shephard running in circles. It certainly allows Sam to show herself at her dogged and creative professional best - even while she's misreading Paul, falling for a handsome chap who wants her to recover his possessions lost when that container ship grounded, and having famine rows with her brother.

I enjoyed seeing Symon develop and explore Sam's character through all this, even if, like her housemate Maggie, I wanted to take her aside for a serious conversation (several times, in fact). Shephard is a compelling, well-rounded protagonist in these stories, a million miles removed from the stereotypical middle-aged male detective with a booze problem (sorry, Morse) yet still interesting and quirky.

With this third book, Symon has extended the character and varied the format, giving a tense and quick moving mystery that entertains throughout and offers a few hints of trials to come for DC Shephard. Looking forward to Book 4 already...!

For more information about Containment, see the Orenda Books website here.

If reading my review makes you want to read the book - I hope it has - and you are unable in these times to make it to your local highstreet bookshop, I've included some buy links below (totally unaffiliated and unsponsored). That said while ours has closed "for the duration" it is fulfilling and dropping off orders, so do check. (As Karen from Orenda sets out in a blog here, Orenda is supporting bookshops with deliveries at a time when some of the big sellers - including A Big Internet Site - are drawing back).

Containment is available online from Hive books which supports local shops, or from Waterstones, Blackwell's, Foyles or WH Smith.

The tour continues - see the poster for the next stops!