2005 Christmas reads: New Zealand fiction

Responsibility
By Nigel Cox
(Victoria University Press $29.95)

Museum expert Martin Rumsfield longs for adventure — and finds some in Berlin. Cox has great fun playing with what he calls "hardboiled detective fiction cliches", toying with plots and locations and the result, we think, is one of the more enjoyable New Zealand books of the year.

Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs
By Linda Olsson
(Penguin $28)

Terrific debut novel about a writer taking refuge in a quiet Swedish hamlet to think over traumatic events back in New Zealand. She's there to write a book but her friendship with an older woman leads her to record a darker narrative.

Death of a Superhero
By Anthony McCarten
(Vintage $27.95)

Donald Delpe, 14, has cancer. He lives in Wellington with his yuppie parents, he is locked in a drug-heavy battle with the disease and he escapes the awfulness by losing himself in a cartoon fantasy starring him as the superhero. Written in an original three-act format, a tender and unflinching portrait of a great little battler.

Tu
By Patricia Grace
(Penguin $35)

Winner of the Montana Book Awards Deutz Medal for Fiction; a sweeping saga following the Maori Battalion in World War II and the long reach of racism. Inspired by the diary of Grace's father, with some scenes taken directly from his accounts.

Kissing Shadows
By Renee
(Huia Publishing $34.99)

When Vivvie Caird's mother goes into hospital, Vivvie finally gathers the power to go through her mother's belongings and try to discover the truth behind her father's disappearance. Her work leads to a devastating outcome.