Time for a killing

by Shonagh Koea

Lydia, a gorgeous, blonde of uncertain age, has for several years been the chief entertainer at the Cote d'Azur, a high-class brothel of splendid architecture and decoration. Her sad and disorderly history is explored here in this ironical and richly adverbial novel of the mores and manners of the twenty-first century.

The Cote d'Azur is also the home of a group of disconsolate and eccentric ghosts, all former owners of the house, who are deeply upset by untalented flower arrangements, tasteless furniture, domestic disharmony, dislocated shoulders and lack of sex.

The glittering cast of characters includes the viciously untasteful Kevin Crumlatch and his pathetic wife Moira, who spends much of her time reading New Age inspirational literature while wearing dirty slippers.

157 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Shonagh Koea has published short stories, novels and memoir. She won the Air New Zealand Short Story Award (1981), her novel Sing to Me, Dreamer was a finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards (1995), and The Lonely Margins of the Sea was runner-up for the Deutz Medal for Fiction (1999). She has held the University of Auckland Fellowship in Literature (1993) and the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship (1997).

The Kindness of Strangers: Kitchen Memoirs is a collection of Koea's memories from her various roles as daughter, wife, mother, journalist and novelist, and as such serves as a social history of New Zealand of the past 50 years.