I reviewed Mandy Hager’s Strays & Waifs as part of the great Kapiti fiction theme – there are so many good reads coming from that stretch of coast. Something in the wind, perhaps. Strays was the first gutsy read in the series ‘Chasing Ghost Mysteries’, now followed by book two, Revenge and Rabbit Holes, which again, is a mix of thriller, mystery/crime plus ghost story, with a healthy dollop of Mandy Hager’s signature ‘fight for what’s right’ theme. I like a book that’s high on entertainment but still manages to have decency anchored in its body.
Our girl Bella is adjusting into Kapiti life after the unsettling incidents in the first book. She still is companion and helper to the seemingly frail Freyja, who is losing her sight and with it part of her independence, but none of her sass. Like any good duo, both offer their strengths and Freyja’s power comes in the fact that she has a clutch of dead people sitting around her, offering her advice which sometimes is dead useful and sometimes more of a feeling: this is safe. This is not. One thing that isn’t safe is the grizzly offering left in their letter box, or strung out on a garden tree. The past might not be behind them, yet.
When a friend’s son, Jonah, starts spending all night online, then staying away with a group of activists in a camp, talking anti-government and anti-oil men rich pricks, spouting patriotism and coming out with crazy conspiracy theories, Freyja suggests Bella befriend him to see if she can help pull him out of his rabbit hole. Freyja senses a connection between the pair and sure enough they do get on, read the same books, begin to build trust, and Jonah opens up in a way he wont with his mother. Bella has freedom fighter credentials. She’s a climate activist and her writings on protest are read aloud at marches. Jonah tells her about Phil, his charismatic leader, but the more he talks the more the alarm bells start ringing.
Eventually the action heads to the hills and by the time Bella realises what Phil has got his team of followers involved in and the ill conceived stupidity of it, she seems too late. Revenge and Rabbit Holes takes off on another wild ride of a climax as the very real difference between peaceful protest and extremism battles out and all their lives are put in danger.
The Chasing Ghost Mysteries are turning into a set of thrillers with a moral compass, a great genre. I’m looking forward to the next in the series.
Cristina Sanders' blog 