Jennifer Lawn
Hooked Up by Fiona Sussman (Bateman Books, 2025), 288pp, $38.99
On a crisp winter morning in Mangawhai, Detective Inspector Ramesh Bandara scans a murder scene. The victim is slumped in the tearoom of a building site, as if he had keeled over in the midst of a convivial after-work beer—though the strangulation marks on his throat tell of a skilful and ruthless killer. Bandara calls in his unconventional colleague, Constable Hilary Stark, who recalls that the modus operandi resembles an earlier cold case in which a psychologist was similarly murdered. It is quickly established that the victims are connected as former participants in Hooked Up, a reality dating show that aired some ten years previously. As the body count climbs, Bandara and Stark, first paired in Fiona Sussman’s novel The Doctor’s Wife (2022), scramble to locate the remaining participants, not knowing which of them to protect from possible further attacks and which to clap into handcuffs.
With the reality television setting, Sussman has hit on an inspired premise for a crime novel. For one thing, it furnishes an entire cast of suspects—a key element of the police procedural genre in particular. Who wouldn’t harbour at least a few murderous impulses in the hyped-up cauldron of humiliating self-exposure that is reality television at its cruellest? Beyond genre requirements, live dating shows have a terrible track record in terms of sexualised violence. For example, Rodney Alcala, a contestant on The Dating Game in 1978, later turned out to be a serial rapist and murderer. In 1995, a guest on The Jenny Jones Show was killed in a homophobic attack following an episode in which same-sex secret crushes were revealed. The Love Island franchise has been implicated in the suicides of multiple former contestants. And most recently, male contestants on Married at First Sight, which appears to be the prototype for the format of Hooked Up, have been accused of raping their on-screen wives.
With the moral seriousness that has characterised her novels to date, Sussman doesn’t disguise her disdain for what one character calls the ‘real-life Hunger Games’ of dating shows. The whole reality television ecosystem is denounced, from the ‘superficiality, narcissism and toxic backstabbing’ of some contestants to the on-site psychologists who play mind games and the ‘disingenuous’ producers who ‘[pay] lip service to the contestants’ wellbeing’. The indictment extends to the prurient, popcorn-chomping audience as well, as flagged by the epigraph: a quotation from Ridley Scott’s film Gladiator, which reads archly, ‘Are you not entertained?’
To drive home the point, Sussman makes a formal decision to juggle points of view to expose what goes on behind the camera in reality shows. In the early stages of the investigation, Constable Chris Hōhepa is tasked with reviewing the VHS tapes of all the episodes of Hooked Up. First up are two women who have just been paired as a couple, kissing in a steamy embrace. Somewhat improbably, given his usual ponderousness, Bandara advises Hōhepa to ‘take an imaginative leap’ and trust his instincts to glean any resentments or betrayals that might have been brewing behind the scenes. Then the reader becomes aware of something that Chris can’t see on the screen, with the change in point of view signalled by a change in font: the scene is retold as it played out on set, with the director and principal storywriter of the show ambushing the contestants and urging them into a passionate kiss that may not have been entirely consensual. As the investigation lengthens into weeks and months, the periods of flashback become more extended. Although awkwardly introduced, this double time scheme neatly furnishes readers with a second set of clues as we watch relationships between the contestants inevitably fray into the kind of ‘confrontainment’ that seeds murderous impulses as well as television ratings.
With a wry sense of humour, Sussman leavens the crime investigation by weaving in a parallel dating storyline, as Bandara and Stark become increasingly aware of their growing feelings for each other. True to crime fiction conventions, they are emotionally wounded and somewhat self-isolating individuals. Bandara is a tea-drinking teetotaller, reeling from divorce and the death of his son; Stark dedicates her professional life to the safety of women, having been scarred by the murder of her mother at the hands of her father when she was 12 years old. Experts at reading the smallest details of crime scenes and the subtle body language of interviewees, they are blind to their own telling clues of desire.
Does all of this material add up to a satisfying reading experience? Yes, if you don’t mind a large dollop of domestic romance in your crime fiction. A fair portion of the storytelling is occupied with the everyday lives of Bandara and Stark. We see much of Bandara’s living arrangements and his parenting struggles with two teenage daughters (answering back, bickering, talk of getting tattoos). Covering for Bandara’s work commitments on a Saturday, Stark takes the girls for a hike up Rangitoto, carting Nan’s homemade chocolate cake in a Tupperware container. Brusquely task-focused, she waves away complaints about blisters and Dad’s crappy parenting skills. Later in the story, a cute ex-police dog makes an appearance, adding a furry companion to the homely mix. Personally, I enjoyed the mundanity. The characters are fun and the scenes relatable. Mind you, I’m a parent myself in a blended(ish) family situation—which might give me more tolerance for Hooked Up’s excursions into dating at middle age, with kids and a dog in tow.
There is a larger point at stake, however. It’s a feminist act on Sussman’s part to explore the genre crossover territory between police procedural and domestic fiction. In fact, it’s Sussman’s female characters who seem to have the most spark and individuality. There’s Stark’s blousy, orange-haired Australian grandmother, whose contributions from the sidelines of the netball court comprise ‘loud whoops, line-calls and unsolicited game-strategy tips to both teams’. There is Esmé Quinn, the sniffy, gatekeeping personal assistant, who dismisses the suicide of one of the former contestants on Hooked Up: ‘The poor girl who topped herself had a lot going on. Retrenchment. Financial stress. Significant mental health issues’. There is Verity Scott, anxious and cautious, still vulnerable and strained in her memories of appearing on Hooked Up some 10 years on. Most memorably for me, there is Julia Lumsden, the exhausted, newly bereaved widow, left with a mortgage and three young children, whose careful words hint at a sense of relief as well as despair: ‘[My husband] was adamant he wanted four. … But I persuaded him we needed a breather after Liv. She’s such a poor sleeper.’
In the investigative storyline, there’s much to admire. The pacing is breezy and the dialogue laden with (mostly) idiomatic banter. Sussman takes on a much larger cast of characters than in previous novels and manages enough detail to make each one distinctive. What Hooked Up lacks, though, is a compelling build-up of suspense. It’s not that domestic details necessarily undermine narrative tension—as we know from The Doctor’s Wife, which combined family drama and crime with a more convincing sense of menace and danger. Nor does Hooked Up convey much of the viscerality and horrendous pain of criminal violence—in contrast to another of Sussman’s novels, the Ngaio Marsh Award-winning The Last Time We Spoke (2016). The realities of violence against women do underpin the story; after all, Stark’s primary motivation as a Family Harm constable is rooted in her own traumatic experience: ‘She gave each case her all, because every woman with a chunk of hair missing and bare, bleeding gums was her own mother. And every solemn, wide-eyed child was herself’. But in Hooked Up, the worst violence occurs off-stage, and the overall vibe is fast-moving and light. Like Hercule Poirot, Bandara enjoys his tea well sugared; and this novel, sitting at the decidedly cosy and domestic end of the police procedural genre, is well sugared too.
Throughout her oeuvre, Sussman’s formal experimentation with point of view—bridging characters of diverse race, class and gender—underpins a liberal worldview. Though often narrated through excruciating pain, especially in her earlier writing, her works reveal an accumulated belief in the virtues of moral clarity, the powers of forgiveness and confession, and the ultimate goodness of humanity. Readers who prefer a grittier, more sardonic or cynical worldview in their crime fiction will need to look elsewhere.
Fiona Sussman’s career to date has shown both versatility and growth, so I’m curious to see what her next move will be. Her first novel, Shifting Colours (2014), might be deemed political melodrama, as the colonial violence of apartheid in South Africa is exposed through (another) story of maternal deprivation and emotional repair. The Last Time We Spoke is victim-centred crime fiction set in New Zealand, using the gruelling experience of recovering from a home invasion as a narrative vehicle through which to counterpoint interpersonal, colonial and societal violence. Addressed to Greta (2020) is a narrative of self-empowerment, while The Doctor’s Wife is a psychological thriller. My pick is that Bandara and Stark will make a further appearance soon. Having stacked Hooked Up with stock police procedural elements—the eager junior colleague, the office naysayer, the harried senior officer, institutional dysfunction down at the station—the indicators suggest that Sussman is teeing up a sequel. And if that is the case, I’m already looking forward to reading it.
JENNIFER LAWN is a Learning Designer at AUT University. Her teaching and research interests encompass the postcolonial Gothic, contemporary cultural studies in Aotearoa New Zealand, and representations of trauma in literature and film.
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