The Pukeko

Wandering swamp hens unearth the body of Swedish babe, Johanna Anderson, partially buried in a grassy New Zealand field on the Coromandel Peninsula. Police bring in former constable, Gideon Cooper, teaming him up with Maori Detective John Winks. The department quickly picks up and jails Rongo Omana, the blonde’s Maori boyfriend, who lives in a rural settlement over the hill. When they discover Johanna was pregnant, detectives dig deep into the couple’s sexual relationship. Their investigation leads them to an Auckland university archeology department where her former boyfriend is a student.

Cooper’s wit, often acerbic and irreverent, makes him difficult to work with. By-the-book Winks refuses to partner with a non-Maori detective with a bad reputation when the crime is obviously Maori related. But Cooper’s background makes him the right person to solve the crime, and Winks the right partner to keep him from derailing. The pukeko, New Zealand’s swamp hen, survives in the bog, but bodies and hidden treasures are buried there too. Murder, deception, and politics keep quirky and funny Cooper up to his knees in mud.