Prey by Vanda Symon #SamShephard6, blogtour

This is the first novel I’ve read by New Zealander Symons. It’s the sixth in a series, and whilst I like, where possible, to start a series from the beginning, this sixth volume is like a new start as Detective Sam Shephard returns to work in the Dunedin police after maternity leave.

In the Prologue, we’re taken to a dark and rainy night round the side of Dunedin cathedral, and a woman witnesses a tussle at the top of the stairs, with one man falling to his death. She knows who the two were…

In the present, it’s first day back for Sam who lurks at the back during the daily briefing, but to no avail, boss DI Johns calls her out at the end, ‘ “Ah, Shephard. You decided to come back and join us?” ‘ He tells her to come to his office, whereupon he gives her a cold case to investigate. She hides her disappointment. The death of the Rev Freeman twenty-five years ago was big news but they never caught the perpetrator. However, DI Johns has one crucial bit of information to drop on her…

‘The Reverend Mark Freeman was my wife’s father.’

Sam is going to have to be very careful, very diplomatic indeed. Before the day is done, she will have had a visit from her husband Paul with Amelia for a lunchtime feed, and paid a visit to the scene of the crime, discovering that the stairs on which the deadly altercation happened are hidden from general view – finding a witness will be difficult. She’ll need to speak to Rev Freeman’s family, his children Felicity (DI Johns’ wife) and Callum, and his wife Yvonne. Why is DI Johns, who had been on the unsuccessful team investigating the murder back then, reopening the case? As a anniversary present to his wife? To give closure to his mother-in-law, who is terminally ill with cancer? Sam can only wonder at this early stage.

Day two, and she sets up a visit to Felicity – and to her pleasant surprise – finds her totally the opposite to her asshole of a boss. Back at the station, she has a confrontation with Johns, who is demanding a progress report and wanting to know why she’d visited his wife without telling him:

I made a point of slowly lifting my head to meet his rather frosty gaze. I wasn’t about to be intimidated by this arsehole.

“Then let me make myself clear. If I am to undertake this case which is at your request, I might add, then I have to be able to operate without any interference from you. It is precisely because of your close relationship with the case that we have to be seen to be completely impartial. Any interference on your part would be seen by potential defence lawyers as members of the police having special treatment, or even worse, as impeding the case. We would get laughed out of court and any hope you might have of finding closure, of finding justice for Felicity for the death of her father would go flying out of the window.” By now my voice had gone from what I had planned as measured indignation to semi-rant and my index finger had risen to pointy height. “I assum that you actually want to find his killer, that that is the purpose of this exercise? If that is the case, then you need to back off and let me do my fucking job.”

Before he can retort, Smithy, one of the other officers speaks up for Sam, agreeing. Johns respects Smithy, and Smithy calms the situation down. Go, Sam!

Anyway, Sam has her work cut out for her. Old reports to read, interviews to set up with all those around 25 years ago, including Mel Smythe, the Youth Worker, and Aaron Cox, a homeless man Rev Freeman had befriended and was trying to help, as well as old colleagues and the family. It’s a big task, and despite suffering from ‘boulder boobs’ and missing her little daughter, she sets about it with a rigour that was missing from the original investigation. Things start to hot up once she has managed to make contact with Mel Smythe though, and the case takes on a different direction, I shall say no more.

I really liked Sam Shephard. She is straight-talking, earthy, friendly and professional, and as a new mother has a newly-developed different level of empathy and intuition. Alongside the case, we get to meet Paul, her husband, who is a supportive and funny spouse, who loves to hear her talk about the case as they wind down after work together. We also get to know Amelia’s poo-face well and experience a ‘poonami’ just as Sam and Paul, now back at work too, were leaving to take her to daycare. All the joys of dealing with breast pumps, leaking tits, and all the burping, farting and pooing that babies do, taking turns with the clean-up, etc. It’s a good thing that Amelia is adorable and well behaved other than that.

I am very glad to have discovered Vanda Symon, and so look forward to reading some of the previous books in this series, as well as what comes next! This was such a refreshing read for a crime novel. I loved it.

Source: Review copy – thank you! Orenda paperback original, 300 pages.

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