CRIME IN CONTEXT

Name: CRIME IN CONTEXT
Start: 2025-10-23T18:00:00+12:00
End: 2025-10-23T19:00:00+12:00
Location: TE NONINGA KUMU – MOTUEKA PUBLIC LIBRARY

Michael Bennett, Fiona Sussman + Rachel Paris

Writers + Kōrero

What draws us to crime, psychological thriller, and suspense stories and what do they reveal about the deepest parts of ourselves? Step inside the minds of three masterful storytellers – Michael Bennett, Fiona Sussman and Rachel Paris – as they explore the social, psychological, cultural, and political contexts driving their page-turning stories. Chaired by Sylvan Thomson.

In Carved in Blood, tenacious Māori investigator Hana Westerman rejoins the police to help scour the city for the unidentified shooter in the third book in Bennett’s award-winning series. The detective duo from The Doctor’s Wife return in Sussman’s latest novel, Hooked Up, and find themselves embroiled in the dark side of reality TV. In See How They Fall, we follow two women – Skye, a mother, and Mei, a detective – as their lives get sucked into the devious vortex of the uber-wealthy.

All books will be on sale through our festival bookstore partner, Paper Plus Nelson, both in store at 237 Trafalgar Street Nelson, online, and at our Pukapuka Talks venues – get your copies signed by the authors after their session! If you’re buying online, please select the Nelson store to collect in person.

Rachel Paris

Rachel Paris was a lawyer for over fifteen years before writing her first novel. In 2024, she graduated with a Master of Creative Writing (First Class Honours) from the University of Auckland and received the Phoenix Prize for the best creative portfolio. Her debut novel, See How They Fall, was released in April 2025 by Hachette in Australia and New Zealand and in May 2025 by Penzler Publishers in the United States. A Hollywood production company has optioned the screen rights to the book.

Fiona Sussman

Former family doctor Fiona Sussman hung up her stethoscope in 2003 to pursue another long-held dream, to write. Published internationally, she is the author of five novels and numerous short stories. Her novel The Last Time We Spoke won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel in 2017 and was shortlisted for the NZ Heritage Prize in 2016. Her novel Addressed to Greta launched Bateman Books’ fiction list and went on to win the NZ Booklovers Award for Best Adult Fiction in 2021. Fiona’s short stories have also received critical acclaim, including ‘Mad Men’, which won the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award in 2018, and ‘A Breath, A Bunk, A Land, A Sky’, which was shortlisted from over five thousand entries for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2020. Her latest crime novel, Hooked Up, will be published by Bateman Books in September. Fiona is currently living in Nelson.

Michael Bennett

Michael Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Hinerangi) is an award-winning screenwriter, director and author. His first book, a non-fiction work telling the true story of New Zealand’s worst miscarriage of justice, In Dark Places, won Best Non-Fiction Book at the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards. His latest book, Carved in Blood, is the third in his Hana Westerman thriller series. The first book in the series, Better the Blood, was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction/Ockham New Zealand Book Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Audio Book of the Year at the Capital Crime Fingerprint Awards. It was also longlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Debut Dagger and was a finalist for both Best First Novel and Best Novel at the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards.

Sylvan Thomson

Sylvan Thomson is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. He has taught creative writing at the University of Michigan. His fiction and essays have been published in New Zealand and the USA and his work can be found in Sport, Metro Magazine, The New Zealand Review of Books, Best New Zealand Non-Fiction, and A Public Space (USA), among others. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the IIML at Victoria University and an MFA from the University of Michigan. In 2020 he was awarded the Todd New Writer’s Bursary. He is based in Ruby Bay.