GIVEAWAY: 5 copies of Summer Heat: CYPRUS
A detective thriller set in DUNEDIN
26th March 2025
The Ringmaster by Vanda Symon, a detective thriller set in Dunedin.
#fromourbookshelves
The Ringmaster is the second (of six) in Vanda Symon’s Sam Shephard police detection series. Sam has moved on from being the only police person in a small rural community to being a trainee detective in Dunedin. She has good colleagues, but a boss who is out to prove she is incompetent.
A female student at the university is found murdered, and the whole police department swings into action. Sam, though, is given all the boring routine jobs… She is involved in policing an animal rights protest at a circus that is visiting town, and has a feisty (but ultimately friendly) relationship with the circus owner. In her investigations, Sam stumbles across the fact that the student murder in Dunedin is the latest in a seemingly unconnected series of killings across the South Island that have taken place when the circus was in town. Can this just be coincidence? The circus, and its personnel, become the focus of the police investigation.
The Ringmaster is a very good story of police detection. It well describes both the intuition and the basic leg work that are the foundation of most crime solving. The story unfolds with horror at the circus and trauma in Sam’s personal life. The balance is about right. Where, though, I do feel that Vanda is starting credibility a little is in the final denouement. It is too much of a coincidence,
Dunedin (often described as the Edinburgh of the South) comes through very strongly as the location for the book.
A book that is exciting, interesting – and certainly worth a read.
Tony for the TripFiction team
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