Nigel Latta: Into The Darklands

Reviewed by DAVID LAWRENCE

Well, into the Twilightlands anyway, I thought. This is not Ed Gein or Ted Bundy territory.

But thinking again, what the people in this book do is bad enough. I wouldn't want to tell a child who had been raped there were worse things that could have happened.

And as Nigel Latta says: "It's the mundane horrors that should scare you. Forget the headline-grabbing celebrity killers, it's Mr Nobody you should worry about because he lives in every town."

Latta is an Auckland forensic psychologist - he describes himself as a "thirtysomething shrink in jeans" - who has spent 13 years working with murderers, rapists, other sex offenders and abused children. Just about everyone in his book is or was an abused child.

Among the criminals we meet is Barry (name changed, of course), who sodomised his nephew so badly the boy needed reconstructive bowel surgery.

Barry wants to know why he did it, so Latta runs through the theories for him:

Because you are a repressed homosexual; it was a way to express power and control; it was a distraction from your depression.

Because you wanted emotional intimacy and couldn't get it in an appropriate way because your parents didn't teach you how.

Because you hate the boy's mother.

Because the boy represented yourself and it was an act of self-punishment.

Because you wet your bed ...

But all that, Latta then tells him, is "psychological bollocks". Barry did it because he wanted to and because he could.

Latta doesn't really care about the why. What he's interested in is how he can stop the bad guys hurting people again.

On almost every page I was reminded of another forensic psychologist, a fictional one. Latta has much in common with Fitz, the character played by Robbie Coltrane in the television drama Cracker.

I'm not suggesting he's an overweight, chain-smoking alcoholic with a gambling problem.

But he is unconventional, he has his own set of rules, he has a problem with authority, he hates the system, he is vehemently anti-PC and he likes to say "bollocks" a lot.

This, from Latta, could have come straight from the mouth of Fitz:

"Who in their right mind would want to enter into some kind of emotional exchange with a man convicted of raping children?

"No, better that we sit back behind our clip-boards and make our assessments of their criminogenic needs and their predictive responsivity to treatment.

"Except, of course, that doesn't work. You can dress all this stuff up in as much jargon as you like, but in the end it boils down to asking the bad guy - granted in a relatively sophisticated way - to please stop doing bad things to other people."

Or this, on political correctness: "It is bullshit dressed up as divinity, and I hate it to the very core of my being."

Latta has something else in common with Fitz: despite the human wreckage he deals with, in fact partly because of it, he is funny.

So while this is often a harrowing read - accounts of neglect and suffering may move you to tears - it's also entertaining.

It is an unflinching, important book. Latta doesn't have all the answers, as he is first to admit, but he brings a large load of common sense and experience to bear.

I'd recommend it to anyone who cares about children. And to those who think tougher sentencing is the answer to violent crime.

* HarperCollins, $29.99