Paper Cage
-
- £11.99
-
- £11.99
Publisher Description
**Shortlisted for Ngaio Marsh Awards 2023**
*Shortlisted for The Ned Kelly Awards 2023*
'Tom Baragwanath's provocative first novel is riveting and shocking' The Times
'[A] magnetic debut . . . breathtakingly compelling' Daily Mail
Masterton, New Zealand may be a small town, but its residents are certainly not united. Old resentments and the simmering tensions of race and culture divide the Maori and white inhabitants, with everyone keeping to their own patch of turf. But when local children start to go missing, vanishing between the cracks, accusations are hurled, and community relations reach boiling point.
Caught in the middle is Lorraine Henry. She works as a lowly records clerk at the police station amongst towering piles of paperwork, quietly making connections and remembering things that the cops would rather not. Solving cases is not part of her job, but when her great-nephew is the next to disappear, she must put her skills to the test as she is called in to help, all before time runs out for the children.
Both a nail-biting thriller and a beautifully written, acutely observed portrait of a community in crisis, Paper Cage is the award-winning debut from young New Zealand novelist Tom Baragwanath.
'An astonishing debut [with] a wonderfully flawed central character . . . Such a standout novel' James Oswald author of All That Lives
'This literary thriller heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in New Zealand storytelling' Fiona Sussman, author of The Doctor's Wife
'Tom Baragwanath has mastered the craft of literary crime' Age
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Baragwanath's deliciously tense debut paints an evocative portrait of a New Zealand community at risk. Lorraine Henry's quiet clerk job at the Masterton police station gets complicated when two Maori children from the economically depressed small town are kidnapped in quick succession. A short time later, Lorraine's own great-nephew, Bradley—the son of her half-Maori niece, Sheena—goes missing. Though investigators tap Lorraine for insights into the Maori community, they're put off by her sense of urgency. So, she sets out to find the kids on her own, utilizing her law enforcement ties and familiarity with Maori language to track them down. Baragwanath powerfully highlights the racist treatment of New Zealand's Indigenous people without sacrificing pace or intrigue, and the complicated bonds between Lorraine and the rest of her family add weight and dimension to the narrative. In weaving together a lived-in portrait of small-town New Zealand with a truly crackling mystery, Baragwanath proves himself a writer to watch.