17 Years Later by J. P. Pomare

Reviewed by Rod McLary

I have read and reviewed each of J. P. Pomare’s six previous novels beginning with his debut Call Me Evie in 2018; and now his seventh novel has been published.  A number of the author’s books has won awards including the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel for Call Me Evie.  All have been psychological thrillers of the best kind where truth is a moveable feast; and the twists and turns in the plot ensure that the ending is revealed only at the ending.  And through the narratives in each of his novels, the author exposes the ‘demons in the dark recesses of [the] souls’ of the protagonists.

Bill Kareama – about twenty-years-old – is engaged as a live-in chef with the wealthy Primrose family who live just outside Cambridge in New Zealand.  The family comprises Simon and Gwen and their children Elle and Chet.  Simon was once a Minister of the Crown in the United Kingdom before a scandal broke and the family emigrated to New Zealand to escape the ignominy – and the physical threats.  The consequences of Simon’s backstory reverberate through the novel and lead to more than one red herring.

Suddenly, three members of the family are stabbed to death in their beds – only one has survived.  Bill is charged and then convicted of the murders and is sentenced to prison.  And there he remains until seventeen years later when a true crime Podcaster – Sloane Abbott – takes an interest in the case not because she believes him to be innocent but because the investigation and subsequent trial appear to have been rushed and incomplete.

Thus begins this slow burn of a novel and the narrative is told from the unique perspectives of the three key protagonists – Sloane, Bill and TK Phillips [Bill’s erstwhile psychologist and staunch defender].  Sir Walter Scott once said: ­Oh what a tangled web we weave/when first we practice to deceive; and J P Pomare has woven a very tangled web indeed as various peripheral characters come and go through the narrative.  As so often in the author’s novels, none of these characters is quite what he or she seems – all seem to be masking from view some aspect of their past – and this adds to the slow build-up of tension as the plot unfolds.

However, the pace accelerates as Sloane and TK move closer and closer to discovering exactly what went down on that fateful night seventeen years previously.  When the denouement arrives, any assumptions the reader may have made up to this point can be discarded as the killer is revealed.

To quote another writer – William Faulkner – the past is never dead, it is not even past; meaning of course that the past continues to reverberate through the present whether we like it or not.  Even though J P Pomare’s novels are different from each other in characterisation and plot, the intrusion of the past into the present is common to all.  This is one of the reasons why his novels are so engaging and psychologically thrilling – and 17 Years Later  is no different.  This novel is one which grabs the attention reader from the beginning and the twists and turns of the narrative ensure that the pace is never lessened.

Well recommended for all lovers of crime fiction.

17 Years Later

[2024]

by J. P. Pomare

Hachette

ISBN 978 073364 964 6

$32.99; 384pp

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