The Crime of Huey Dunstan by James NcNeish, Text Publishing (Australia) & Random House (New Zealand), RRP AU$32.95 & NZ$36.99.
I was intrigued by this title purely because it was written by James McNeish – a New Zealand author who I confess I hadn’t yet read. The Crime of Huey Dunstan is narrated by Professor Chesney (a psychologist who specialises in trauma and also happens to blind) who recounts to us his involvement in the trial of Huey Dunstan – a young man accused of a killing that he very definitely did commit – but the question that Professor Chesney investigates is why? And what could this mean within New Zealand’s laws regarding provocation?
You can probably see where this is going by now, and really it doesn’t take much. The story is not so much in the plot points but in the head space of its characters and the machinations of the legal system they’re dealing with. McNeish has done a fine job of exploring the implications, both social and legal, of the provocation defense within the New Zealand system. All very timely considering recent cases that have provoked both impassioned and ill-thought-out responses.
In some ways the book reads a bit like a who-dunnit – not who-dun what Huey-dun, but who-dun it to Huey. Ches finds that Huey’s actions may have been beyond his control due to an unacknowledged trauma in his childhood. There’s some talk of “buried memories” here but I’ll be honest, to me the idea of a buried memory is that you hold on to it a lot harder than Huey does, which points to the only real fault of the book - pacing. Some of the early “investigation” by Ches seems to happen a little too fast and the revelations come out a little too easily. Then we got into a lot of the courtroom drama and, as a reader, I started to feel bogged down. Fortunately McNeish does a better job of picking the story up in the final quarter.
McNeish also does an excellent job of portraying the back story and concurrent lives of Huey’s family and his superb study of the character of “back country” North Island towns is both restrained and immediately recognisable, and these are some of the most enjoyable passages to read. The details of the relationship of Ches and his wife and Ches’ family and acquintances are also nicely handled as are the practical details of Ches’ working life as a blind person.
In the end I have to confess to not being entirely sure of where I was with Huey – did I believe him? Did it matter whether I believed him? And, just as importantly, did I believe Ches? Of course these are exactly the questions that arise whenever the defense of provocation was used. I don’t feel that McNeish answered any of these questions, which I hope wasn’t really his intention.
My final summing up (see what I did there, with the legal laffs?) though is McNeish hasn’t quite pulled this all together and pulled it off. I was left with a distinct feeling of the end not quite mashing with the middle not quite mashing with the beginning not quite mashing with the whole. A book of good parts mixed with bad parts and unfortunately marred by the inconsistency.
11 Responses to “Book Review: The Crime of Huey Dunstan by James McNeish”
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So, spot the sentence that I’m ridiculously proud of. I’m such a child sometimes.
“In some ways the book reads like a….”
Annnnd, you get the big fat Wordplay-du-jour prize!
McNeish is a really interesting writer because
a)he’s so hard to categorise, and
b)he is deeply interested in how humans think.
Loved “McKenzie” by the by (I think that was the title – I’ll just go check.)
I definitely got that impression (that he’s deeply interested in how humans think) – I think in some ways the book is perhaps either let down by the way it’s being presented or by a need to adhere to a more traditional “genre”.
There’s a moment right at the end where McNeish appears to call into question the integrity of everything – and I really wish this had been explored way more, instead of seeming to be a throwaway sentence right at the end. When you have a moment like that in a book it’s hard not to question whether an editor has cut it in order to make it a more “populist” read, at the expense of a more challenging and interesting one.
Ooops – “Mackenzie” (which I wrote first and then thought, Looks wrong…)
I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t read any New Zealand crime novels, this sounds like an interesting read. Great review
A NZ crime author – goodie. I have just finished 2 of Paul Cleave’s books and was enthralled by them. Would love to read this. Go the kiwis.
this sounds deeply flawed but still an interesting read which is my bottom line with books.
Nice review Ngaire. I’m still waiting for my copy of this to arrive – it certainly sounds like an intriguing book.
FYI, I’ve linked to your review here on my “Other Reviews” page on Crime Watch, the NZ-based crime and thriller fiction website.
See: http://kiwicrime.blogspot.com/2010/06/links-to-external-crime-fiction.html
Thanks for the link Craig! Please let me know when you get a copy and if you review it – I’d like to link to that.
I was listening to the serialisation of this on RNZ National but the experience was spoiled by a flaw in McNeish’s research. He referred to the lawyer in the US television crime series Perry Mason, and said that Perry Mason was confined to a wheelchair.
Not so. Perry Mason, played notably by actor Raymond Burr, was an able-bodied lawyer. McNeish was confused with another character played by Burr, called Ironside in a series of the same name. Pedantic? Possibly, but it’s the sort of laziness that can break the reader’s suspension of disbelief and destroy any enjoyment. Shame.