The First Rotorua Noir
Rotorua’s Taradome is centre stage in my first independent publication dated 1996 and called Whakaari (White Island; advice from publishers and marketers, Do not use a Maori title). It is an eco-thriller set early in the new millennium in our volcano lands. Maori volcano myth and high-tech Pakeha science merge [...]
Bodgie in the Library 2
Book launch speech Titirangi Library 6 September as part of the Going West Festival My first bodgie sighting was at St Peters College as a third former in the first term of 1955. I was in the long and jostling queue in the quad for the morning tea cream [...]
Bodgie in the Library 1
Book Launch Speech Glen Eden Library 4 September as part of the Going West Festival On a Bodgie Bike is set in 1955 Glen Eden and completes a trilogy I wrote about a stolen monstrance in response to my father urging me to write about the family hometown of [...]
Nazis in New Zealand
At the Paraparaumu Library ‘Murder in the Library’ event last 30 April I was talking about Nazis in my crime story The Plot to Kill Peter Fraser when I heard a loud, sceptical, derisive snort of disbelief from somewhere to the back left of the packed house. Clearly the male [...]
Tree Recycling
Graham Cooper died over 40 years ago but not a day goes by when I do not practise what he preached. I hug a tree, as recommended to Bismarck by his doctor in a book Graham gave me called The Secret Life of Plants. These days the hugged tree is [...]
In Praise of Praise Be
TVNZ have announced the axing of Praise Be. I hope they might reconsider in the light of the new Labour-led government announcing a shift back to support of public broadcasting. TVNZ have shifted away from that, preferring so-called reality shows and sports programmes and dissing their only weekly half-hour of [...]