Softly Calls the Devil

A gripping and intense crime story that will keep you turning the pages.
A riveting tale about a small West Coast township, a cop running from his past and a series of historic crimes that come crashing back.

There is just something special about picking up a book and immediately recognising the locations and the uniquely Kiwi vocabulary. The story centers around a police officer working around the Haast area on the West Coast of New Zealand. Matt Buchanan is living the quiet life of a small town cop until a body is found on the beach. His quiet and slow paced way of life is all about to change.

Blake has written with humour and typical Kiwi stoicism, the pace is swift and as the past is uncovered and truth comes to light, we can see the pieces fitting together into a much larger picture.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book - loved the humour, the descriptions and the real Kiwi vibe. If you enjoy a police procedural crime story with twists and turns, you will love this.

Softly Calls the Devil is the second novel (the first being The Sound of Her Voice by the author’s former pseudonym, Nathan Blackwell) featuring Constable Matt Buchanan, a straight-talking, salt-of-the-earth policeman from Auckland.

This book follows Matt’s journey as the sole police constable in the small town of Haast on New Zealand’s west coast. Just as the west coast is famous for its raw wilderness, this book will take you on a heart-pounding chase where past, present, and the occult converge.

Mr Blake’s work in both the New Zealand Defence Force and the New Zealand Police is evident throughout the book and in the authentic portrayal of Buchanan. As a lover of crime fiction and thriller novels, I really appreciated the gritty writing that never felt overdone.

If you’ve a hankering for a dark ‘whodunnit’, then grab a whitebait fritter, a copy of this book, and prepare to be transported to the west coast for a vivid, adrenaline- packed story that will leave you breathless and unable to put the book down without finishing.

An excellent contribution to the noir crime genre from a local author who, we hope, is just getting started.