Overkill - Vanda Symon

I read the first few pages of Overkill while waiting to hear the author speak at a recent conference; talk about gripping. I wanted to keep going right there and then, but shut the thing up long enough to listen politely and get myself home. It is a cracking opening... and I won’t spoil it.

And the rest of the book? Cracking?

Not exactly, but a good read, for sure.

Overkill is the first novel of New Zealander Vanda Symon, who used to be a pharmacist and decided to write a crime novel after the birth of her first child. This is years ago now, of course. I’m a bit behind the times and hadn’t heard of her. Now Overkill is the first in a popular series all featuring a young female detective Sam Sheppard. It’s set in small town south island New Zealand. And I really liked that. For me reading is like travelling and it’s great to go somewhere new. And Symon has done a good job of painting the lives of the  characters who live in this small community, without peppering it with cliches.

Sam is a good character. You’d need her to be because Overkill is told from Sam’s point of view alone. She’s young and enthusiastic. Not too many scars, skeletons and neurotic personality flaws – not that I mind those. But Sam’s young and somewhat naive, an early career copper who still thinks she can make everything right in the world. She should be like that. I was like that once myself without the job.

She’s also very likable. Admirable. Kind of tough, but also vulnerable without being a sook. I love the embarrassing dumb stuff she’s done breaking up with her ex and I like the problem she has still fancying him even while she’s investigating the murder of his wife. I would certainly be keen to follow Sam into other books. This is especially because she’s young and there are so many different directions for a character like her to go in the years to come. Plus the very understated sex in this book (she gets it on, but retreats behind closed doors for the deed) was pretty sexy. Reminded me of when things like that sometimes used to happen to me.

What didn’t crack for me? Actually the plot ended up being a let-down. The underlying premise that explains the murder – which I won’t give away – was really interesting and kept me up late trying to get to the solution. But when I got there it ended up being a tad over-done and a bit far-fetched.

Don’t want to spoil it, but hiring a hit man (revealled in first chapter, so not much of a spoiler) when you’re in the position/condition of the murderer (revealled at the end, so I wont elaborate) would be unbelievably difficult to do from a small town in New Zealand. It’s never explained. And we find out that a lot of people know what the murderer has done (after the event), but for their own self interest, say nothing. It didn’t ring true to me. The murder of a young mother in front of her child and townspeople are colluding to hush it up? I don’t think so.

Aside from that, the writing wasn’t quite strong enough for me to totally forget myself in this book. The prose is competent but isn’t really a feature – and I’m a sucker for fantastic writing be it in crime or anything else. It was also a bit by-the-numbers for me, which is often the case with police procedurals. I like big surprises and twists and there weren't many of them. For me, Overkill also lacked a sense of danger and suspense – a spooky mood - which was captured in the first few pages and never really recovered. I enjoy that in a book and missed it here. For these reasons  Overkill isn't really what I'd call a cracking read.

But there was enough good stuff for me to want to read more from Vanda Symon. There’s some really nice humour and a cool character. The story moves along and builds mystery. I was certainly interested enough to want to know what happened. And I will eventually read the next in the series and that’s big tick from me. I’m not generally one who gets hooked into characters in series these days. Too often writers lose the edge they originally had that made them stand out from the pack and get published and noticed in the first place – but by then they are so popular no one will say anything. I’m scarred for life by the Kay Scarpetta novels which I started out loving and ended up hating. Let’s hope Sam Sheppard doesn’t go the same way.

And there we have it. It doesn’t have to be cracking to be recommended!