Martinborough noir with feminist bite

Cambelle Cook

Wairarapa Times-Age

Martinborough resident, retired GP, and author Rosy Fenwicke.

Martinborough is best known for its colonial charm and exceptional pinot noir — but for Rosy Fenwicke, it’s also the ideal place for solving a possible double homicide. On the page, that is.

Fenwicke, a retired doctor turned full-time novelist, will release her newest murder mystery, The Secret of the Angel Who Died at Midnight, on June 9.

The police procedural novel is set in the heart of Wairarapa wine country and follows detective sergeant Kate Sutton as she investigates the shocking death of a popular local physician.

Piecing the puzzle together, Kate finds connections to a cold case that has haunted her for some time — and discovers more secrets hidden beneath her town’s picturesque exterior.

Fenwicke, a former GP with a background in women’s health, first ventured into self-publishing in 2017. Since then, she had released a five-volume urban fantasy series, a Queenstown-based romance, and a thriller set in the treacherous world of digital finance.

Among her enthusiastic Amazon following, Fenwicke was well-known for her tenacious and well-rounded female protagonists — including Kate, named for one of Fenwicke’s “most influential teachers”, Cathleen Sutton.

Her latest novel was the first novel set in her home town of Martinborough, which she found was the perfect backdrop for a gripping whodunnit — with its off-the-beaten-track location adding to the intrigue.

“Martinborough has got that mix of town and country, it’s small enough to centre an action-packed plot, and it’s a more remote setting, making it a contained environment,” Fenwicke said.

“There are all the challenges of crossing the Remutaka Hill, and the infrastructure issues which keep the town quite isolated. So, it’s easier for secrets to stay buried.

“Plus, the community has quite an optimistic feel. The people want to look ahead and don’t want to be held back by the crime — which gives the protagonist the impetus to solve it quickly.”

Fenwicke said she had “always had a passion for writing”, and had been an avid reader most of her life.

She cited John Steinbeck and Don DeLillo as major inspirations, particularly for how they explored the weight of individual choice and the entanglement of the “personal and the political”. She also admired British crime writer Ann Cleeves for her compelling characters.

While still working as a GP, Fenwicke began work on her first novel, Hot Flush, featuring middle-aged super-heroine Euphemia Sage.

“Euphemia finds she has new superpowers with each hot flush. So, she goes and sorts out the world, while still getting her housework done and running her own business.”

Fenwicke’s latest novel is set in Martinborough, its isolated location adding to the intrigue.

Four more Euphemia Sage novels followed, before Fenwicke delved into romantic fiction. Her novel Death Actually centred around a newly-separated funeral director, and explores “grief, redemption, and the ways we cope with death”.

She took a darker turn with Cold Wallet, about a woman who inherited her late husband’s cryptocurrency exchange — which came with dangerous embroilments.

Across genres, Fenwicke was clear on one thing: she didn’t write “powerless female victims”, which were still a ubiquitous trope in crime writing.

“Women are avid consumers of crime fiction, including where women are the helpless victims. So, I wonder if women are still seeing themselves as filling that role,” she said.

“It’s important to me to write women who look after their own destiny. In my books, they’re brave, stand up for what’s right, raise their own children, and if something doesn’t sit right, they do something about it.”

Fenwicke said her experiences working as a doctor with sexual assault victims influenced her writing. However, she avoided going “full crime” in her novels, choosing not to include graphic violence or exploitation.

“When you write, you live with your characters. I don’t want to live with the horror of underground New Zealand society.

“But I do want to show women pushing through and achieving justice. What I love about crime writing is that justice wins always.

“Crime writing is the ultimate redemption and vindication. It champions decency.”

On staying motivated to complete her stories, Fenwicke said: “I just sit down in the morning, and write until I’m finished.

“Once you are hooked on writing, you can’t stop until the idea has run its course. My house is filthy and my garden needs doing,” she said.

“Writing is biggest challenge I’ve ever had. You’re constantly striving to be better. I’ve been known to throw out 70,000-word drafts because they just didn’t work.

“When it does work, you feel like you’ve climbed Mt Kilimanjaro — a champion.”