Hana Westerman

Hana Westerman is a tenacious Māori detective juggling single motherhood and the pressures of her career in Auckland’s Central Investigation Branch. When she’s led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man hanging in a secret room. As Hana and her team work to track down the killer, other deaths lead her to think that they are searching for New Zealand’s first serial killer.

A tenacious Maori detective, Hana Westerman juggles single motherhood, endemic prejudice, and the pressures of her career in Auckland CIB. Led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man ritualistically hanging in a secret room and a puzzling inward-curving inscription. Delving into the investigation after a second, apparently unrelated, death, she uncovers a chilling connection to an historic crime: 160 years before, during the brutal and bloody British colonization of New Zealand, a troop of colonial soldiers unjustly executed a Maori Chief.

After the perils of a case that landed much too close to home, Hana Westerman turned in her badge and abandoned her career as a detective in the Auckland CIB. Hoping that civilian life will offer her the opportunity to rest and recalibrate, she returns to her hometown of Tata Bay, where she moves back in with her beloved father, Eru. Yet the memories of the past are everywhere, and as she goes for her daily run on the beach, Hana passes a local monument to Paige, a high school classmate who was murdered more than twenty years ago and hidden in the dunes overlooking the sea.

Having left Auckland's Central Investigation Branch, Hana Westerman has moved to the coast for a fresh start. When the skeleton of a young Māori woman who went missing a decade before is discovered in the dunes near her house, Hana is drawn into the investigation. Twenty years ago a schoolfriend of hers was found buried in the exact same spot. But her killer died in prison. Did the police get the wrong man? And, if so, why did he plead guilty? No longer part of the CIB, Hana turns to her ex-husband Jaye for help.

It’s a chilly Auckland winter, but for Hana Westerman and her family, it is a time of excitement. Matariki is approaching – the small cluster of stars also known as the Seven Sisters is a sacred constellation in Māori culture, heralding a time of new beginnings. But this Matariki brings unwelcome change. When Hana’s ex-husband Jaye, a high-flying Detective Inspector, is shot in what looks like a random hold-up, Hana offers her help to the senior police officer spearheading the investigation, DI Elisa Grey. With access to police intelligence, Hana makes a breakthrough.