Better the Blood by Michael Bennett

Condition: great

The past never truly stays buried.

Hana Westerman is a tenacious Mãori detective juggling single motherhood and the pressures of her career in Auckland's Central Investigation Branch. When she's led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man hanging in a secret room. As Hana and her team work to track down the perpetrator, other deaths lead her to think that they are searching for New Zealand's first serial killer.

With little to go on, Hana must use all her experience as a police officer to find a motive for these apparently unrelated murders. What she eventually discovers is a link to a historic crime that leads back to the brutal and bloody colonisation of New Zealand.

As a Mãori officer, there has always been a clash between duty and culture for Hana, but it is something that she's found a way to live with.

Until now. When the pursuit becomes frighteningly personal, Hana realises that her heritage and past are the keys to finding the killer.

But as the murders continue, it seems that the killer's agenda of revenge may include Hana - and her family.