The Body and the Blood by Molly Crighton. This is a crime thriller set in and around St Paul’s Cathedral in Dunedin’s Octagon. A woman is found on the floor beneath the organ loft - initially the police assume she’d fallen, but a young police administrator senses that something more sinister was afoot and recruits a notorious journalist to help get to the bottom of it. For people who know Dunedin well, it’s a great location.

Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty. Many readers will remember her excellent Big Little Lies some years ago which was subsequently made into a terrific TV series. This is a sequel, ten years later when the kids from the original book are now at college and their parents are navigating complex lives. There’s outrage in the community when the principal of the college receives a shocking delivery and a strange man starts hanging round the school, and eventually there has to be a reckoning. These are terrific characters, and anyone who loved the original book will also love this (though it can equally be read on its own). 

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