Michael Bennett is an acclaimed New Zealand screen writer and director who’s debut novel Better The Blood has already sold for translation rights in six countries. It’s a nail biting crime thriller that is also a Trojan horse for complex, difficult themes.
Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and in Binge Reading this week Michael talks about his debut novel, a serial killer investigation led by a tenacious Maori detective Hana Westerman which reveals a darker side to Kiwi paradise and highlights the truth that the past never truly stays buried.
Our free book giveaway is appropriately Crime Mystery and Suspense for September. You’ll find the details of how to enter, plus the shownotes for this episode on the joys of binge reading.com.
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Links in the episode
Investigator Tim McKinnel: http://www.zavest.co.nz/aboutus/directors.asp
Bishop Frederick Augustus Bennett: https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3b29/bennett-frederick-augustus
Teina Pora: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teina_Pora
In Dark Places: (the non fiction book about the Pora case: https://www.womensbookshop.co.nz/p/true-crime-in-dark-places-the-confessions-of-teina-pora-and-an-ex-cop-s-fight-for-justice--2#:
In Dark Places, the documentary film: https://www.facebook.com/TVOneNZ/videos/1880106578748247/
Matariki film: https://www.nzfilm.co.nz/films/matariki
Paula Penfold: https://www.penguin.co.nz/authors/michael-bennett
Eugene Bingham: https://www.stuff.co.nz/authors/eugene-bingham
Leon Narby: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0621274/
Whina the movie: https://www.nzfilm.co.nz/films/whina
Taika Waititi: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0169806/
Quentin Tarantino: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000233/
ImagiNATIVE: https://imaginenative.org/
Script to screen: https://script-to-screen.co.nz/
S.A. Cosby: Blacktop Wasteland https://www.amazon.com/Blacktop-Wasteland-Novel-Shawn-Cosby/dp/1250252687
Razorblade Tears: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250252708/razorbladetears
Val McDermid: https://www.valmcdermid.com/
David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Winter Counts: amazon.com/Winter-Counts-David-Wanbli-Weiden/dp/0062968947#:
Where to find Michael online:
https://www.nzonscreen.com/profile/michael-bennett
https://www.penguin.co.nz/authors/michael-bennett
That’s it for the house keeping
Introducing Michael Bennett thriller author
Jenny Wheeler: Hello there, Michael, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.
Michael Bennett, Kiwi thriller author
Michael Bennett: Tena koe, Jenny, thank you very much for having me. I'm very pleased to be here.
Jenny Wheeler: It's fun to have another Kiwi author on the show, and one with such a fascinating book. This is your debut novel, and often we don't take debut novels because we say we are The Joys of Binge Reading, so we like to have multiple books so if people like the author then they can go and read their back list.
We have made an exception here today, or I have, because number one, it's a fascinating book, but also you are an experienced screenplay writer and you have also written a highly praised nonfiction book. What made you switch to the fictional novel form for your writing?
Michael Bennett: That's a great question and I feel very complimented that you made an exception to have a debut novelist. Better the Blood, I guess just to talk a little bit first what the book is about so your listeners might know. It's the story of a senior Maori cop in the Auckland CIB, Detective Senior Sergeant Hana Westerman, who finds a connection between a series of killings that haven't previously been connected.
What Detective Senior Sergeant Westerman finds out is that in the 19th century, a Maori chief was brutally executed on one of the central Auckland maunga (mountain) by a troop of British army soldiers. She discovers that two killings that have happened today are descendants eight generations later of two of the soldiers in the troop that executed the Maori chief.
Film maker turned novelist
There were six soldiers in the troop back then and two descendants are dead now. Four more descendants are going to be killed unless Detective Westerman can stop the killer. I guess the readers or the podcast listeners will get that there are a lot of themes about colonialism and where we are in terms of 200 years after New Zealand was colonized, et cetera, within the story.
What brought me to writing this novel – as you point out, my background is very much as a filmmaker and a screenwriter. That changed about maybe seven or eight or nine years ago when I got very involved in Teina Pora’s case. Ex-detective Tim McKinnel, who became a private investigator, is the guy who saved Teina, who found his case.
Teina was in prison and he was a forgotten man. Tim came to me and he showed me the videotapes of Teina being interviewed for five days in the South Auckland police station by two senior cops without a lawyer present, at the end of which he was arrested for a murder he didn't commit. Seeing those tapes was a seismic tectonic change in my life, Jenny. I can't even begin to describe what it was like.
My son was a 17 year old at that point, the same age that Teina was when he was being interviewed, and I kept looking at this young Maori boy being questioned in this way that is so problematic, and who clearly had nothing to do with the crime, clearly knew nothing about the crime, and as a consequence of that questioning spent 21 years in prison.
A 'tectonic shift' led to Teina Pora book
Seeing those videotapes was a tectonic shift for me. It was a moment when I realized that I’d spent a decade and a half developing my skills as a screenwriter and a filmmaker to a certain point, and here was suddenly something I could use my skills for, that was really important, to help an innocent man get freedom and get justice. I made a documentary on Teina’s case and eventually I'd make a feature length drama.
After the documentary came out, I realized that there's only so much you can put in a 60 minute documentary. I knew so much more about both the injustice behind the case and the complexities in that injustice, and what that says about the justice system and how Maori are not well done by within that justice system. But also so much more that I knew about Teina as a human being and so much more that I wanted to explore.
For the first time in my life, I actually thought about writing prose. I'd always thought, I'm not a prose writer. When I write, it's always like a series of images in my head. I say that there's a little movie screen in my head and I'm literally watching my characters and moving through their environment, be it a hillside or a room, and kissing each other or hitting each other or arguing or whatever. There's a little movie screen in my head and my writing is just keeping up with that movie screen and putting down what I can see.
Writing prose a 'joyful discovery'
I'd never thought about writing prose until I realized that I was indebted to Teina and his story – to explore this story much more deeply. So I thought I'd give a go and I'd write a nonfiction book about Teina’s case. What I’ve got to say is that it was such an incredibly joyful experience writing. I mean, it's not a joyful story to tell, and I wish it was a story that I'd never had to tell, but it was a joyful experience, the writing of prose.
There's a freedom in writing prose that you don't have as a screenwriter. I don’t know if your audience necessarily knows much about screenwriting, but I always compare it to a haiku. It is a very structural kind of a writing. I'm probably going to make a fool of myself here, but does it have 14 syllables? There's a definite structure, and it's the same with screenwriting. With a feature film, something happens at minute 10, something happens at minute 18, something happens at minute 24. In almost every film you have ever seen, the same structure occurs.
But with writing prose, with writing that first non-fiction book, there was this incredible freedom. Yes, you have to keep the story moving forward. Yes, you have to keep progress happening, but you can spend a whole chapter just on a moment in a person's life in a way that you can't really do with a screenplay. Structurally there is, I think, a lot more freedom to take moments and to explore avenues that you would never have time to do in film and television.
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