Hello everyone,
I am very excited to be part of this blog tour for Containment by Vanda Symon, and now to be sharing my thoughts. Thank you to Anne Cater for giving me the chance to participate, and to Orenda Books for providing me with a free copy.
Pages: 262
Published: 5th March 2020 by Orenda (originally published in 2009)
Genre: Crime
Content warnings: Drugs, sexual references, injury detail
Chaos reigns in the sleepy village of Aramoana on the New Zealand coast, when a series of shipping containers wash up on the beach and looting begins. Detective Constable Sam Shephard experiences the desperation of the scavengers first-hand, and ends up in an ambulance, nursing her wounds and puzzling over an assault that left her assailant for dead.
What appears to be a clear-cut case of a cargo ship running aground soon takes a more sinister turn when a skull is found in the sand, and the body of a diver is pulled from the sea . . . a diver who didn’t die of drowning. As first officer at the scene, Sam is handed the case, much to the displeasure of her superiors, and she must put together an increasingly confusing series of clues to get to the bottom of a mystery that may still have more victims.
This was an intelligently written police procedural which begins a little slowly before developing into an intriguing mystery. One crime leads to another as we follow protagonist DC Sam Shephard during a complex case that the author conveys in meticulous detail throughout.
It is actually the third book in a series, but despite that it works well as a standalone and there was never a moment where I needed to have read the previous two instalments to understand what was going on. This was also the first book I have read to be set in New Zealand, and I really appreciated the way it was used to bring an added sense of context to the story.
The case here begins when a ship runs aground and spills a number of the containers it was carrying, which leads to widespread looting. As she attempts to restore order, DC Shephard is assaulted by a young man and is forced to take a week away from work to fully recover.
Upon her return, she is asked to investigate the discovery of a body found at sea and soon finds that this person had been murdered at around the same time as the shipwreck. As the case progresses and throws up some interesting coincidences, Sam becomes very personally involved to the extent that she puts her career on the line.
Once it got going, I was fairly immersed in the plot and liked the fact that a lot of attention was given to each aspect of the case. However, for a crime novel it was not the kind of book that kept you guessing and although there were several characters involved there were hardly any clues to speak of that pointed to who might be the killer. I managed to guess correctly, but that was not down to any powers of deduction on my part!
The ending itself is very dramatic, and a lot is crammed in to the final few pages. It left me feeling that only half of the case had been solved and there were still some questions left unanswered. Of course, that might be something for the next book in the series, but I would have preferred to know the full picture of what happened in that last chapter.
Yet in many ways, the book is less about the case and more about Sam. She is a strong female protagonist, and it is her narration that carries you through.The way it is written made me feel as if I was living inside her mind, such was the clarity with which all of her thoughts and emotions were relayed, and I liked how this brought a great deal of depth to her character.
Although she did have one or two negative traits, I did quite like Sam. As a narrator, she was entertaining and witty with a sharp turn of phrase that did make me laugh on some occasions. Indeed, that was probably the aspect of the book that contains the most enjoyment. On the other hand, the sections about her personal life were an unwelcome sub-plot.
Another thing I slightly disliked was Sam having a rude and unreasonable boss in the police force, which for me was cliched and became a bit tiresome. Apart from DI Johns, the secondary characters were well developed and through Sam’s eyes they brought something unique to the story.
The writing is continually impressive in the way it captures Sam’s point of view and shows plenty of sides to her character. It is clear just from reading the prologue that Vanda Symon can paint a picture with words, but she also brings an attention to detail and an injection of humour that is never very far away.
Overall, this was a descriptive though generally fast-paced book that brought together an intricate case and an interesting protagonist who had a very distinctive voice. There were some issues relating to the ending and the sub-plots, and I would not completely describe it as a thriller, but the writing is still extremely good and it held my attention right through to the end.
Vanda Symon is one of New Zealand’s most noted crime authors. The presenter of a weekly radio programme in Dunedin and member of several literary associations, she began the DC Sam Shephard series with Overkill, which was originally published in 2007.
She went on to write four books in the series, the last of which was published in 2012. The revised and updated UK editions are now being published by Orenda Books, Containment being the third of them.
This was my first experience of reading this series and I found a lot to like. There were flaws, but the writing was spot on and Sam was a strong and witty narrator.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Stephen Reads Books 