#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.

#Blogtour #Review - Bound by Vanda Symon

Bound (Sam Shephard, 4)

Vanda Symon

Orenda Books, 4 March 2021

Available as: PB, 265pp

Source: Free advance copy from Orenda Books

ISBN (PB): 9781913193522

I'm grateful to Orenda Books for an advance copy of Bound to consider for review and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour.

Four books into this series, Symon's irrepressible detective, Sam Shephard, has yet another nasty murder to unpick as well as a series of personal and professional dilemmas. Her father is dying of cancer and she's wondering where to take her relationship with Paul (now one of the team - breaking Sam's unwritten rule about the thing you don't do with the "crew"). And DI Johns - aka The Boos - is as much of a sexist pain in the backside as ever.

I felt Sam was a bit more subdued in this one. Maybe it's the subject matter - her dad's illness is hitting her hard - or maybe it's that she is learning her limits (I do hope not!) but she doesn't get into quite so much trouble with Johns here. Even though, after being instrumental in solving the murder, she takes another look and begins unpicking the case again, potentially exonerating two known gangsters who are believed to have killed a police officer...

The book opens with the wife of a prominent Dunedin businessman gagged and tied to a chair in her own sitting room, gazing at his bloodstained body and waiting for her son to come home and release her. ('You vomit, you die'). It falls to Shephard and her team to unpick John Henderson's life and business, identify some dodgy connections and zoom in on those who might want him dead. The investigation allows Symon to sketch a whole web of shady Internet pharma dealing, which dovetails with drug dealing and organised crime. Sam even gets a trip away to Auckland (portrayed here very much as a place you don't want to go) to chase down some leads (literally).

The picture is complicated by the fact that the two prime suspects - who have gone to ground - are suspected of being involved in the earlier killing of a police officer, and the injury to Sam's friend Smithy that has left him morose and hurting. He's definitely not a neutral party here, so when allegations are made of a police fit-up, Sam's in rather an awkward position.

I really enjoyed Bound. Its opening is deceptive, appearing very much a conventional police procedural with a relatively straightforward case and with Sam rather on the periphery of events, sent to do the boring little jobs that nobody else wants while the big boys duo the real work (grrr, I really hate DO Johns!) But Symon twists things, and the book suddenly seems to be going to quite unexpected places (although if you go back, the clues are there). 

That's true not only of the case but of Sam's private life and her future with Paul. (I'm not sure I completely welcomed developments there: don't think I really approve of him and I think Sam deserves better). There's a nice little dance around her relations with her family where either said family are being unreasonable expecting her to spend more time with dying dad while she has a big case on, or Sam is, rather deliberately, choosing not to seek approval to step back from the case which she reasonably could do. Or maybe both. At any rate it may be easier for her to throw herself heart and soul into avenging one (deliberate and avoidable) killing than to have to face up to the slow and lingering (but unavoidable) death of her father. 

Whatever, Sam doesn't have it easy here - as is usual in these stories, her author really puts her through the wringer. (One day perhaps I'll read a Sam Shephard story where she is happy and relaxed and then I'll know that Symon has been kidnapped and is trying to get a message out via her books).

Recommended, where you've read this series before or not (but if you haven't, you should).

For more information about Bound, see the Orenda website here. You can also purchase the book there either as paperback or e, or you can get it form your local bookshop, or online from Bookshop, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyles, WH Smith, Waterstones or Amazon.

The blog tour also continues - don't miss any of the great stops, which you can see on the poster below.

#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!