Wendy M. Wilson

Mid-1800s New Zealand is home to the Māori, a large contingent of immigrants from Denmark, and other settlers. Sergeant Frank Hardy becomes a detective in this first book in a series trying to track the bodies of two drowned Danish boys and ending up attempting to solve murders that may be tracked to conduct by the military trying to pacify the land. It looks like he’ll pair up with a Danish woman Mette, who goes to work in the town bookshop. I enjoyed this book and it’s tempting to continue to read the series.… (més)

This story is set in New Zealand in the late 19th century. Sgt. Frank Hardy was part of the expeditionary forces who fought with the Maori, so as to take Maori land for the European immigrants. But Sgt. Frank left the armed forces for the constabulary, and then somewhat later on he became the driver of the mail coach in the local area.

Sgt. Frank is approached by a couple of "Scandis", Danes in this case, who want to know what happened to two young men who had disappeared, Paul and Jens. The two Scandis were Hans Christian Nissen and Pieter Sorensen. Pieter is married to Maren, and her sister, Mette Jensen, lives with them. Mette is considered not so beautiful, although I'm not sure why, but she is intelligent, curious, and hard working. Apparently, Sgt. Frank can see this, so becomes immediately smitten. That is probably one of the reasons that he decided to search for the missing young men.

Well, we have investigations, meeting with various locals, including immigrants and Maoris. Along the way, Sgt. Frank becomes friends with and works with a "native" constable, i.e. a member of the constabulary who happens to be Maori. He also has some issues with Mette in that she has been warned to avoid him by her sister and brother-in-law, and he has some uncertainty on his own whether or not his attaching himself to a Scandi would be appropriate. By the end, we know the fates of the two young men, and Sgt. Frank decides to give up the Mail coach for becoming a private inspector. He thinks there's enough call for such a person. The "native" constable, Karira, thinks of quitting the constabulary and partnering up with Sgt. Frank. And, of course, it seems that the budding romance has a high probability of success. I'm guessing that one has to read the sequel to be sure on this last point.

Anyway, it was a fun read. It was a bit difficult because it was sprinkled with Maori terms. There was a glossary at the end of the book, but switching back and forth on a Kindle is much more difficult than doing so in a dead tree book, so I didn't check the glossary until I'd finished the book. Fortunately, I caught the gist of the Maori words from their context.
… (més)