Recently, I read the crime novel, The Leaning Man, set in Wellington. I particularly enjoy new local fiction and this edgy mystery is set in grimy inner city Auckland.
Meet Lestari, who finds herself caught up in a mystery after witnessing a murder in Symonds Street Cemetery. But what has she really seen? Lestari owns a tattoo studio on Karangahape Road and the hangers-on in her life include a teenage runaway and a married cop. Meanwhile, her Indonesian mother is in a self-medicated blur after her father disappeared years earlier.
Lestari uncovers a covert clinical study that has been targeting rough sleepers and others on the fringes for decades. She soon discovers that everything is connected – the unpredictable drug and its dark connections with her own life. Does the past disappear and how far will Lestari go to save someone she loves?
Isobar Precinct cleverly explores perceptions of time and progress. Author Angelique Kasmara has a Master of Creative Writing. She was shortlisted for the Michael Gifkins Prize and winner of the Sir James Creative Writing Award. Read an extract of the first chapter here.
Reviewer: Andrea Molloy The Cuba Press, RRP $37.00
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