Novels
Wolves in Dogs’ Clothing is the second novel in the Wolf Trilogy by New Zealand novelist Christodoulos Moisa.
It is New Year’s Eve 1973 in Nicosia, Cyprus. New Zealand journalist Steve Carpenter is celebrating the occasion with his friend Inspector Petros Zymaras and his family and is looking forward to a happier 1974. But it is not to be. In the early hours of the next morning, Zymaras receives a call from the United Nations headquarters on the island: one of their helicopter patrols has found a body within the Green Line, the buffer zone that separates the Greek Cypriots from their Turkish counterparts. This brutal event marks the beginning of a tumultuous year for Carpenter and Zymaras, who are drawn into solving a series of cold-blooded murders against an impending storm of civil war and invasion. The two friends find their mettle tested to the limit in a climate where they and all the others who live on the Mediterranean island are forced to question loyalties and long-held beliefs and to face threats from both within and beyond.
Once more in its long history Cyprus, the “island of love” is cast into the mire of hatred.
The Hour of the Grey Wolf, is set in Cyprus during 1973. The CIA and its Greek Junta proxy are gunning for Archbishop Makarios, the democratically elected first President of the Republic, and because of this a civil war, where Greek would be fighting Greek, is looming. The narrator is Steve Carpenter, a New Zealand journalist of Cypriot descent. Wounded in Vietnam where he has worked for REUTERS, he chooses to go to Cyprus to recuperate. However, as a new chapter in Cypriot history unfolds, he becomes drawn into solving a murder that occurs in Mpalloura, the village where he is living. Knowing that he may be putting his own life at risk, Carpenter gingerly delves into the deadly politics of the time and the labyrinth-like complexity of a peasant village whose inner darkness one is rarely exposed to.
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NEW BY
CHRISTODOULOS MOISA
This novel was due to be released in 2019 but due to the Christchurch Mosque shooting it was delayed and published in July 2020.
Set in 1975 this novel follows the exploits of Steve Carpenter and Petros Zymaras as they tackle two separate murders that are connected by intend.
Overcast Sunday is set in April 1950 in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. It describes events that occur over a twenty-four-hour period after a young woman is discovered murdered in an inner city alley outside the Greek Club. The Police, already having a similar murder on their books unsolved, are keen to make quick progress and apprehend the killer to avert panic. The prime suspect is Jimmy, a veteran of Abyssinia, Dunkirk, Greece and Crete, who works as a chef in a local Hotel. He is also a champion ballroom dancer and has a reputation as a ladies’ man. Jimmy’s friend Hari, who is also a veteran of some of the same battlefields, is also implicated. Hari has been trying hard to find some semblance of a balance in his life and give his life meaning in his new homeland. He is working at a tailor’s to put himself through university and simultaneously trying to cope with the demons bequeathed to him by war. With the murder, tensions rise amongst the Greek community who value their special immigrant status in the city.
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This novel explores the lives of the immigrant community in Wellington after the Second World War and through it, the wider society. It explores the clash of mores as outer and inner communities try to adjust to a violent near past and a prospering post-war economy. Ballroom dancing, a flourishing black market, sly grogging, gambling and looser morals contribute to an underbelly that many who live in the capital are unaware off as they struggle to make ends meet.
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“Overcast Sunday is a thoroughly enjoyable novel in which family relationships, human nature, Greek customs, Wellington suburbs and the everlasting trauma of war and murder, all collide." Suzanne Gardner
“As a Greek Cypriot women it was a real delight to read about Greek men and their 'men only world' from which Greek women were excluded ... I found it particularly interesting in terms of gaining an insight into a bygone era and an awareness of the thoughts and attitudes of those times.” Maria George-Green
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