JP Pomare Photo: Hachete
It’s a 2024 thriller concerned with race, podcast-making and the criminal justice system high on a fair few 2024 best-of lists.
17 Years Later is Melbourne-based bestselling New Zealand writer JP Pomare’s seventh novel in as many years.
In the book, it’s been 17 years since the violent stabbings of the British immigrant Primrose family while they slept, in Cambridge in the Waikato. And 17 years since the swift charge with the murders of the family's young live-in Māori chef Bill Kareama.
All these years later, arrives celebrated Australian true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott on the sleepy scene. She’s keen to meet accusations of her podcast series focussing too much on white people by reopening the case.
Sloane’s so good she has a reputation for overturning convictions, and she tracks down prison psychologist TK Phillips, once a fierce campaigner for an appeal.
Like all great crime thrillers a cast of supporting players begin to emerge as potential killers, but you know there’s going to be a twist.
Photo: Hachette
Particularly from a writer who is getting a reputation for being the Kiwi King of them.
Considered one of Australia’s most popular writers today, JP Pomare has carved out an enviable career.
Debut novel 2018 Call Me Evie was an international hit and won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel. 2019’s In the Clearing was made into a Disney+ Original Series, while 2020’s Tell Me Lies was a #1 Audible bestseller and gained the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction.
2010’s The Last Guests is currently being made into a TV series.
He joined Mark Amery on RNZ's Culture 101.
