Slash by Gavin Strawhan

Having thoroughly enjoyed Gavin Strawhan’s award‑winning debut The Call, I came to Slash with high expectations. I wasn’t disappointed. 

The Call introduced Detective Sergeant Honey Chalmers in a remote Aotearoa coastal town. She was up against gang violence, grief and relentless moral pressure. Slash returns to Honey a year later. She’s no longer a cop. She’s living with PTSD and barely holding it together after a brutal shootout. She’s drinking too much, eating badly and scraping by on casual work for a dodgy firm of private investigators. 

Slash is the second Honey Chalmers novel, but it works as a standalone. Fans of The Call will simply recognise more of Honey’s backstory and see her journey deepen.

While working undercover to expose a CEO, Honey is recognised by a young cop and his father who ask for her help. Soon she’s pulled into a missing‑person case that unfolds against the chaos of Cyclone Gabrielle. “When I got to the end of The Call, it felt like Honey’s story wasn’t over yet,” says Gavin.

“She’d been through so much, I felt it would be a shame to leave it there. I really wanted to know what happened next in her life.”

Once again, Gavin excels at atmosphere. The action moves from the wrecked forests of Tairāwhiti to the sinister edges of Fiji, where Honey is surrounded by dangerous locals and corrupt power.

What makes Slash so compelling, though, isn’t only the external danger, it’s Honey herself. She’s flawed and fiercely human. Gavin’s sharp dialogue and psychological insight keep the tension humming. We can feel Honey’s unravelling as the threats close in around her. Like The Call, this is crime fiction that understands how violence doesn’t end when the headlines do. It lingers, changes people and leaves damage that can’t be neatly tied up.

“I think crime stories provide a satisfying structure to let the writer explore what’s going on in the world while still satisfying the reader’s urge to know what happens next.” “In The Call I was able to explore issues in New Zealand around the 501 gangs. In Slash I look at the effects of forestry and natural disasters/climate change on regional New Zealand within the framework of a crime story. As I write this, storms and floods are again lashing parts of the country, so I reckon it’s pretty relevant.”

Before writing The Call, Gavin worked as a screenwriter. “I learned a lot about character and story structure from working with other writers in the urgent, thrilling, frustrating, collaborative process that is television. It instilled a pretty strong work ethic - when there’s a whole cast and crew waiting and a scary producer pounding at the door, you can’t really say, sorry, I’ve got writer’s block!”

Dark, fast-paced and emotionally raw, Slash confirms Gavin Strawhan as a major voice in New Zealand crime fiction. 

Reviewer: Andrea Molloy

Allen & Unwin