Ripping good stories evoke place superbly

Containment by Vanda Symon Penguin, 310 pages, $28 Blood Men by Paul Cleave Random House, $36.99

I've noticed a growing trend in crime fiction towards the short sharp chapter, the string of bullet-sized vignettes, close editing and sharp detail.

It's great for the reader of clever crime; it hooks you into the thrill of the chase, and gives you a more intense bang for your buck.

Australian crime writers Peter Temple and Michael Robotham are top marksmen in this style. New Zealand crime writers Vanda Symon and Paul Cleave are my new discoveries. Both writers live in the South Island and are using their local settings, Dunedin and Christchurch respectively, with a worrying sense of credibility.

Leading book blogger and avid crime reader Graeme Beattie (beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com) recently cited Symon's third novel, Containment, as one of his top reads for 2009.

The novel opens with shipping containers washing ashore near Aramoana. Chaos reigns when the locals converge on the beach, looting and scavenging. An old woman finds a human skull, and feisty Detective Constable Samantha Shepherd is knocked unconscious when she steps in to restrain one of the locals.

Symon does Otago justice, despite the murder and the drugs; it's portrayed with a sense of belonging. Besides Aramoana, there is a crib in the Catlins, George St, The Octagon and the ubiquitous student flat on Castle St. Paul the boyfriend is a cop from Gore, and mum and dad are down on the farm; all familiar strands of Kiwiana.

Containment is a ripping good story, told in first person by the spirited Sam Shepherd, with a dash of colloquial humour and plucky attitude, sometimes reminiscent of Janet Evanovich's sassy female sleuth Stephanie Plum. It's fast-paced and addictive reading.

You can read Symon beside the pool with your shades on and cocktail in your hand, or curled up in bed.

Paul Cleave, however, should not be read without another human being in breathing distance, and not at night.

Recently, the Listener profiled the rise of crime, particularly gruesome murder, in the Garden City. "Bizarre and high-profile murders of Christchurch women have spawned the title 'Crimechurch'. Is there something uniquely brutal lurking beneath the Garden City's polished veneer?"

Well, Paul Cleave thinks so, and he's milking it for what it's worth in his fiction, and his markets are growing. His first novel, The Cleaner, sold a quarter of a million copies in Germany and was the top-selling crime novel on Germany's Amazon in 2007. Now, US publishers Simon & Schuster have picked up Blood Men.

Edward Hunter is a Christchurch accountant. It's a week before Christmas and he and his lovely wife, Jodie, are excited about buying a new house. They have a young daughter, Samantha. All seems ordinary, except that Edward is also the son of a serial murderer, a man he's not let into his life for years.

The book hinges, or unhinges, on the day that Edward and Jodie go to meet the bank manager in their lunchbreak. Six masked men hold up the bank, and Jodie is killed.

Edward's a likeable character, and you come to feel sorry for him, and see reason for his anger. Edward seeks a bloody revenge. He hunts out the men who killed his wife and, out of necessity, comes face to face with his father.

This is the most accomplished of Cleave's works, not for the writing or the story, which is always strong and original, but because Blood Men has a new edge of complexity, a growing intelligence that comes with the reader learning not just about Edward Hunter, but also about the light and the dark side of the human psyche, about those faced with an inconsolable loss.

Blood Men is not your simple goodie and baddie plot. Nor is it a detective thriller, the sort where a crime is committed and the reader joins the hunt for the culprit.

No, Blood Men is not for the faint-hearted. You will love or hate it, but be warned, Cleave does brutality well, full-frontal, and it keeps coming, in Christchurch.

• Jessica Le Bas is a teacher, writer and poet from Richmond.

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