"Donny Mac was released at Easter time, about a month before Pansy Holloway, also known as Nightshade, disappeared for good."
The opening lines of Heartland are satisfyingly reminiscent of Ronald Hugh Morrieson's The Scarecrow, alluding to a grisly mystery and, similarly, the action is set in a small town occupied by a cast of endearing, yet disparate, characters.
Taking place in the fictitious central North Island town of Manawa (Maori for heart), this is quintessential heartland New Zealand. Manawa, formerly a bustling timber town, is virtually a ghost town today, as are so many real-life rural towns of its ilk. During the ski season, the population ramps up with the overflow that can't be accommodated in the more popular towns of Ohakune and Raetihi, although the winter influx of holiday-making city folk isn't always embraced by the locals, for a variety of legitimate reasons.
For a small town, Manawa is home to a large and colourful cast of personalities and, once they're all established, the story rockets along at the perfect pace. Donny Mac, from that intriguing opening sentence, has recently returned home, having done time for a crime he didn't commit but, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, he was unable to stand up for himself, so quietly did his lag instead.
Returning to Manawa, fit as a fiddle and ready for rugby, the anger management techniques learned in the clink stand him in good stead. Regularly he'll find himself counting to three to quell the urge to use his fists - happily his time inside wasn't entirely wasted. When he arrives home to find the drunk and obstreperous Nightshade ensconced in his house, pregnant and claiming the baby is his, he comes up against the first of many moments he needs to use this new trick to quell his rage.
