Mid-1800s New Zealand is home to the Māori, a large contingent of immigrants from Denmark, and other settlers. Sergeant Frank Hardy becomes a detective in this first book in a series trying to track the bodies of two drowned Danish boys and ending up attempting to solve murders that may be tracked to conduct by the military trying to pacify the land. It looks like he’ll pair up with a Danish woman Mette, who goes to work in the town bookshop. I enjoyed this book and it’s tempting to continue to read the series. ( )

Neither an interesting character nor time and place ( )

This story is set in New Zealand in the late 19th century. Sgt. Frank Hardy was part of the expeditionary forces who fought with the Maori, so as to take Maori land for the European immigrants. But Sgt. Frank left the armed forces for the constabulary, and then somewhat later on he became the driver of the mail coach in the local area.

Sgt. Frank is approached by a couple of "Scandis", Danes in this case, who want to know what happened to two young men who had disappeared, Paul and Jens. The two Scandis were Hans Christian Nissen and Pieter Sorensen. Pieter is married to Maren, and her sister, Mette Jensen, lives with them. Mette is considered not so beautiful, although I'm not sure why, but she is intelligent, curious, and hard working. Apparently, Sgt. Frank can see this, so becomes immediately smitten. That is probably one of the reasons that he decided to search for the missing young men.

Well, we have investigations, meeting with various locals, including immigrants and Maoris. Along the way, Sgt. Frank becomes friends with and works with a "native" constable, i.e. a member of the constabulary who happens to be Maori. He also has some issues with Mette in that she has been warned to avoid him by her sister and brother-in-law, and he has some uncertainty on his own whether or not his attaching himself to a Scandi would be appropriate. By the end, we know the fates of the two young men, and Sgt. Frank decides to give up the Mail coach for becoming a private inspector. He thinks there's enough call for such a person. The "native" constable, Karira, thinks of quitting the constabulary and partnering up with Sgt. Frank. And, of course, it seems that the budding romance has a high probability of success. I'm guessing that one has to read the sequel to be sure on this last point.

Anyway, it was a fun read. It was a bit difficult because it was sprinkled with Maori terms. There was a glossary at the end of the book, but switching back and forth on a Kindle is much more difficult than doing so in a dead tree book, so I didn't check the glossary until I'd finished the book. Fortunately, I caught the gist of the Maori words from their context.
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1869 Sergeant Frank Hardy is asked to investigate the disappearance of two young men.
A lot about New Zealand's history (3 stars for that) but very little mystery ( )

The first book in the Sergeant Frank Hardy series, NOT THE FAINTEST TRACE is an historical crime fiction novel, set in New Zealand in around 1869-1877. Based around the Taranaki Wars, a land war from New Zealand's past that I will confess to having known absolutely nothing about, the novel uses events with the War as impetus for Frank Hardy leaving the military, becoming instead a mail coach driver and part-time private investigator. In a small Scandinavian settlement, two men go missing, and Hardy has to confront the past, the present, and his possible future.

There's a lot going on in the setup in this novel, and the history lesson here is interesting, albeit delivered in a lot of large info dumps and long and involved descriptive passages which does mean that plot advancements suffers as a result.

There are two more books available in this series as of reading this one, and it feels very much like a group of novels that's heading into territory that would appeal to romance / history lovers who prefer the crime elements more muted.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/not-faintest-trace-wendy-m-wilson ( )