Everyone loves Kareama’s food, including the Primrose children, Elle and Chet, who become increasingly attached to the young man. But the racism is always there, festering just beneath the surface. It erupts during a dinner party for Simon’s British guests, when Kareama presents the Maori sea urchin delicacy, kina, which is callously rejected.
Loading
To compound the indignity, Kareama is called upon to perform the haka in his chef’s whites, an invitation he politely refuses while being subject to demeaning comments about his ancestry. It’s a troubling, but significant moment and surely a motive for murder.
But Pomare is more devious than ever, effectively complicating any obvious conclusions we might reach as Abbott discovers more people who might have had a motive for killing the Primroses. These include the seductive French au pair, the sacked gardener, and the PE teacher at the school suspected of improper relations with Elle. It’s a convoluted plot well worthy of a Ngaio Marsh mystery and the great New Zealand writer is invoked on several occasions.
Even more significant is the salutary lesson about the failings of the criminal justice system encapsulated in the opening epigram “mistakes are possible in any system that relies on human judgment”. To which one might regretfully add, especially when race is a factor.
