Fallout

by Paul Thomas

Overview

Tito Ihaka, the unkempt, overweight Maori cop, was demoted to Sergeant due to insubordination and pigheadedness. He investigates the unsolved killing of a seventeen-year-old girl at an election night party in a ritzy villa near Auckland. Ihaka is also embroiled in a very personal mystery. A freelance journalist has stumbled across information that Ihaka's father, Jimmy, a trade union firebrand and renegade Marxist, didn't die of natural causes. The stories weave themselves into an exciting climax in an atmosphere of political maneuvering and intrigue surrounding the United States' confrontation with New Zealand over its anti-nuclear stance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908524508
Publisher:	Bitter Lemon Press, Ltd
Publication date:	03/16/2015
Series:	Tito Ihaka
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	421 KB

About the Author

Paul Thomas: Paul Thomas, born in the UK in 1951, emigrated , age 3, with his family to New Zealand. He lives in Wellington and is the country’s best known best known crime writer. His novels include Dirty Laundry(aka Old School Tie, 1994),Inside Dope (1995),Guerrilla Season (1996), Final Cut (1999),The Empty Bed (2002) and Sex Crimes (2003)and Death on Demand (2013). In addition, Thomas has written short stories and screenplays for TV, including Ihaka: Blunt Instrument.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/23/2015
New Zealand author Thomas brilliantly combines subgenres in his richly textured fifth Tito Ihaka mystery (after 2013’s Death on Demand), offering a fair-play whodunit, a riveting procedural, and a hard-boiled Maori sleuth who would be at home on the mean streets of James Ellroy’s L.A. Tito’s mentor, Auckland District Commander Finbar McGrail, has spent 27 years living with the unsolved murder of 17-year-old Polly Stenson, who was strangled at an election-night party held at a merchant banker’s mansion. A new lead gives McGrail some hope that the case can be closed, and he assigns Tito to pursue it. Meanwhile, Tito learns that his father, a “union firebrand and renegade Marxist,” may not have died of a heart attack. The complex, well-constructed plot is matched by moving prose, as in McGrail’s meeting with Polly’s parents in 1987 to let them know the case was stalled: “It was even possible, he thought, that they feared catharsis might compromise the emptiness they now accepted as their destiny.” (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Fallout:
Winner of the antipodean Ned Kelly and Ngaio Marsh awards, Paul Thomas is the author of a series featuring Maori policeman Tito Ihaka.The various plotlines are adroitly woven into an eye-poppingly complicated whole in this sharp, unexpectedly funny police procedural with a cast of engaging characters, not least the maverick Ihaka himself.’ Guardian

Praise for Death on Demand:
Ian Rankin tweets in January 2014:
“Finished reading Paul Thomas's 'Death on Demand' on flight to NY. Big, bruising police procedural set in New Zealand. Excellent.” — Ian Rankin (@Beathhigh

“Mazey, gripping plot, terrific maverick cop, violent, profane, funny.”
— Ian Rankin (@Beathhigh

“Ned Kelly Award–winner Thomas takes his time letting readers in on what he’s got up his sleeve in this police procedural, but the deferred gratification is well worth it. Ihaka, who must deal with prejudice from within the force, investigates. A twisty plot and an unusual lead combine to make this a winner.” Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

From the Publisher