All too rarely I find a novel I cannot put down, take everywhere with me, want to turn the pages but don’t want it to finish. This is just such a one, and from a debut author too, whose actual past is that of a detective in the Criminal Investigation Branch of the New Zealand Police.

The body of a woman has been found on a pristine New Zealand beach – over a decade after she was murdered.

Detective Matt Buchanan of the Auckland Police is certain it carries all the hallmarks of an unsolved crime he investigated 12 years ago: when Samantha Coates walked out one day and never came home.

Re-opening the case, Buchanan begins to piece the terrible crimes together, setting into motion a chain of events that will force him to the darkest corners of society – and back into his deepest obsession…

Shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Best Crime Novel of the Year award, The Sound of Her Voice is a brilliantly gripping crime thriller, and is  elevated above the herd by Blackwell’s empathetic portrayal of Matt, the protagonist, a detective who succumbs to the stress of all that he has to see, and FEEL as he works the crimes. The good people get killed, not the bad it seems to him. The perpetrators are not caught, or get off. It’s too much. He leaves the force, flies a plane, until he feels moved to return.

Why? Because he has unfinished business.

This is that rare beast,  a quality crime novel, which in many pays put me in mind of the great Peter Temple.

The author has lived this procedural police world. Is this that allows him to portray so empathetically and to such great effect the psychological stresses that go with the job? t Will solving this latest crime lead him not only to the killer of both women, but release him from the grip of the past?

At times bleak, disturbing, it is always involving, always impressive, and as full of twists as any good crime novel should be. What’s more the characters develop, live and breathe, which sounds simple to achieve, but it darned well isn’t. Go well written into the bargain.

Well done Orion, for publishing Nathan Blackwell. Just let me know when the next one is published.

And most of all: bravo Nathan Blackwell. More please.

Everyone – buy this book. Fabulous, Fantastic.

The Sound of her Voice by Nathan Blackwell. pb £14.99 Audio and Kindle.

Margaret Graham, writing as Annie Clarke: Heroes on the Home Front (Arrow)