Flaxroots Productions
  • Home
  • Non-fiction
  • Fiction
  • Plays
  • Other Works
  • Professional
  • Blog
  • FlaxFlower
  • Review index
  • Contact
  • BMCWC

Other-worldly people

13/7/2016

Comments

 
Picture
​Murder on Muritai 
The Ryxin Trilogy - book one
by Genesis Cotterell

   If you have ever met someone so ‘other-worldly’ that you thought they could almost be ‘from another planet’, then Murder on Muritai may be all the confirmation you need that aliens – Ryxins from the planet Ryxin in this case – have indeed settled on Earth, in human guise, naturally.
   The book opens like any other murder mystery, with Curtis McCoy, a private investigator, listening to his client’s report of her partner’s death, which she assumes was murder. We soon learn however that this is no ordinary crime scenario since the deceased is Ryxin, and Human police are forbidden by law to investigate crimes involving Ryxins.
   ​Muritai Island should be an idyllic setting in the southern Pacific Ocean but instead its population is deeply divided: lawless Ryxins are striving to outnumber the Human population. McCoy is a new comer to the island and a new comer to detective work – this murder is his first case and as he tries to solve it he becomes entangled with the worst features of Ryxin society. At the same time, his involvement with a couple of Ryxin women distract him from his investigation to the point where he seems to have forgotten that he has a murder mystery to solve. And yet, cunningly, as the book draws to an end, McCoy pulls himself and all his clues together and identifies the killer.
   And on the surface, this is Murder on Muritai: a not overly gripping crime novel where the investigator spends much of the book either racing around the island (or catching the ferry to the mainland) in pursuit of various women, or mourning the end of his marriage to a Human.
   In spite of weaknesses in the crime-solving aspects of this book, I found Murder on Muritai both fascinating and disturbing. Cotterell cleverly brought the Ryxin aliens to Earth – to Ireland in a flash of blue light, in 1905 – not so very long after the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand must have seemed like an alien invasion. From Ireland, many Ryxins have made their way to Muritai Island ‘in search of a better life’. Some of them have obeyed government regulations and only mated with Humans, thereby diluting Ryxin blood. Others are intent on illegally preserving their full-bloodedness, and all the superior powers that that entails.
    Putting the science-fiction - suspended reality - aspect of Murder on Muritai aside, it is impossible not to reflect on its parallels with some of the volatile racial and migrant dramas currently unfolding around the world, with their associated issues of socio-cultural diversity, integration and identity preservation, or to muse on colonisation, ethnic cleansing and master races. And then there’s the question of those ‘other-worldly’ people that we’ve all met from time to time: could they have come ‘from another planet’?
   Murder on Muritai is book one in the Ryxin trilogy. If Curtis McCoy is going to stay in business he will have to spend less time chasing beautiful women, but like all good first books in a trilogy, Murder on Muritai ends with some questions still unanswered – a reason for catching up with McCoy, as he strives for a better Muritai Island, in book two. 

Review by Carolyn McKenzie
Title: Murder on Muritai  The Ryxin Trilogy – Book One
Author: Genesis Cotterell
Publisher: P Hayes
ISBN: 978-0-473-35480-0 (Kindle)
Available only as an ebook via Amazon Kindle.

Comments
    Picture

    FlaxFlower Reviews

    Reviews on this page are of New Zealand books – that is, written by Kiwi authors.   
    They are written by independent reviewers not known to the authors.

    Join the posting list
    If you'd like to receive an email when a new book review is posted, please respond via the CONTACT function above.

    If you are a Kiwi author
    and would like your book reviewed send an email via this site and you’ll be sent further details. Give details of genre, length, short description, and formats available – print, ebook (Kindle, Kobo etc). You will need to provide one book free to the reviewer.

    If you’d like to be a reviewer
    send an email via this site giving details of your experience/expertise what genres interest you, and the formats you will consider – print, ebook (Kindle, Kobo etc). If possible, include a URL of one of your published reviews.
       Offer only if you take the task seriously and are certain you will deliver the review.
    ​

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.