While only a few weeks have passed in Sam’s universe, a lot has happened in ours between 20. “It’s been a long gestation!” jokes Symon, whose writing was derailed for some years by deciding to undertake her PhD. But it might also be a sly nod to the many readers who have been waiting eagerly for Sam’s return. The title points to both an unsolved crime (the murder of a pregnant woman) and Sam’s state (she too is expecting a child). Admirers of Symon’s fiction (she has often been dubbed New Zealand’s “Queen of Crime”) will be thrilled to learn that Detective Sam Shephard will return to action early this year with the release of Symon’s sixth novel, Expectant. Symon seemed on the cusp of bigger things.

Like its two predecessors, The Faceless was nominated for a Ngaio Marsh Award for Best New Zealand Crime Novel. Symon’s fifth novel, The Faceless, was a standalone thriller set in Auckland which pushed her fiction in new directions, encouraging readers to think about contemporary social issues, like homelessness in Aotearoa’s biggest city or the influence of Christianity on our Pacific communities. In a genre still mostly populated by strong, moody, male investigators, and usually based in big-city Britain or the USA, it was refreshing to read about a detective-in-training with a nagging mother, sharing a flat with her best friend in New Zealand’s favourite university town. Her first four novels featured Samantha Shephard (a police constable from Mataura who moves to Dunedin to become a detective) solving crimes, dealing with male colleagues who underestimate her, and all the while giving readers a taste of life in Otago - a taste that usually included Milo and a packet of Toffee Pops. The Dunedin-based writer had published five novels in six years and established herself as one of New Zealand’s leading authors of crime fiction.

Faceless vanda symon