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Sergeant Frank Hardy #1-3
The Sergeant Frank Hardy Mysteries
Step back in time and experience the intrigue and danger of New Zealand's early days with the first three Sergeant Frank Hardy Mysteries. With vividly depicted historical settings and heart-stopping suspense, these novels will keep you hooked until the very end.
NOT THE FAINTEST TRACE
When two Scandinavian men slog through the mud to ask war-weary Sergeant Frank Hardy a favour, he has no idea how the favour connects to his own past. As he reluctantly searches the dense New Zealand rainforest for two missing boys, people start dying.
Then he runs into a sheltered Danish immigrant, on the run from an axe-wielding warrior. With both their lives at risk, they work together to find the truth.
Can he find the bodies and keep his head? Not if her family has any say in it.
Download now and fall in love with Frank and Mette.
RECALLED TO LIFE
Frank Hardy awakes in an underground cell with no idea how he got there and why he has been taken. While he attempts to escape, he searches his past to discover why anyone would want him hidden away. Meanwhile, his partner and his fiance search for him while dealing with a body that wasn't supposed to surface and a man who looking for his missing brother.
A DARK AND PAINFUL MYSTERY
Sergeant Hardy and his wife Mette search for a man who left home to find work and did not return. Based on a true story. The three books are the first in an ongoing saga of life in New Zealand, where a seemingly bucolic countryside is fraught with danger, from earthquakes, floods and fires, to the vestiges of war, and all the hardship that went with founding a new country thousands of miles from the homes of the new settlers from places as disparate as England, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, and China.
Amazon
"Wendy Wilson writes engaging characters and highlights the risks and challenges of frontier life in 1870s New Zealand. Her main characters are respectful of the hearts of people and the different nationalities that came together to form modern New Zealand, including the original Maori people. She engages the reader with intense action and danger, while showing a love for the land and places of the southern North island."
NOT THE FAINTEST TRACE
When two Scandinavian men slog through the mud to ask war-weary Sergeant Frank Hardy a favour, he has no idea how the favour connects to his own past. As he reluctantly searches the dense New Zealand rainforest for two missing boys, people start dying.
Then he runs into a sheltered Danish immigrant, on the run from an axe-wielding warrior. With both their lives at risk, they work together to find the truth.
Can he find the bodies and keep his head? Not if her family has any say in it.
Download now and fall in love with Frank and Mette.
RECALLED TO LIFE
Frank Hardy awakes in an underground cell with no idea how he got there and why he has been taken. While he attempts to escape, he searches his past to discover why anyone would want him hidden away. Meanwhile, his partner and his fiance search for him while dealing with a body that wasn't supposed to surface and a man who looking for his missing brother.
A DARK AND PAINFUL MYSTERY
Sergeant Hardy and his wife Mette search for a man who left home to find work and did not return. Based on a true story. The three books are the first in an ongoing saga of life in New Zealand, where a seemingly bucolic countryside is fraught with danger, from earthquakes, floods and fires, to the vestiges of war, and all the hardship that went with founding a new country thousands of miles from the homes of the new settlers from places as disparate as England, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, and China.
Amazon
"Wendy Wilson writes engaging characters and highlights the risks and challenges of frontier life in 1870s New Zealand. Her main characters are respectful of the hearts of people and the different nationalities that came together to form modern New Zealand, including the original Maori people. She engages the reader with intense action and danger, while showing a love for the land and places of the southern North island."
642 pages, Audiobook
Published January 7, 2020
185 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 10, 2022
I have included reviews of the three books that are included in this omnibus elsewhere.
The review for Not the Faintest Trace is here
The review for Recalled to Life is here
The review for A Dark and Painful Mystery is here
The review for Not the Faintest Trace is here
The review for Recalled to Life is here
The review for A Dark and Painful Mystery is here
March 6, 2021
New Zealand has been colonized for about 40 years at the time of these three mysteries and is set in the 1880's. Frank Hardy, an ex-soldier, drives a mail-coach between two cities and must navigate a gorge which is about 100 feet above a wild river. In the first of the three books he meets Mette Jensen, one of several immigrants from Denmark, and rescues her from a Maori who seems, Mette believes, intent on harming her. They are attracted to each other, but Frank believes he is too old for her. Mette thinks he is uninterested, because she isn't as pretty as her sister.
In the second book their mutual attraction continues and they both realize they are interested in the other. Mette has moved into the town of Palmerston as her married sister now has 3 children and she works in a bookshop. Frank is now working as a private investigator and disappears. He has been imprisoned by someone who believes he raped his wife. This is false, but it is up to Mette to prove his innocence.
Frank and Mette are married in the third story and have property on which they intend to have a horse farm. Frank is recruited to find the missing husband of a woman in a nearby town and Mette meets with the woman several times.
While the book includes a list of Maori terms that are used throughout the book, there are many words one must guess at. Descriptions of some of the trees and plants would have been very interesting.
In the second book their mutual attraction continues and they both realize they are interested in the other. Mette has moved into the town of Palmerston as her married sister now has 3 children and she works in a bookshop. Frank is now working as a private investigator and disappears. He has been imprisoned by someone who believes he raped his wife. This is false, but it is up to Mette to prove his innocence.
Frank and Mette are married in the third story and have property on which they intend to have a horse farm. Frank is recruited to find the missing husband of a woman in a nearby town and Mette meets with the woman several times.
While the book includes a list of Maori terms that are used throughout the book, there are many words one must guess at. Descriptions of some of the trees and plants would have been very interesting.
January 22, 2020
Three books. It was the birth of a nation. The nation being New Zealand. Frank Hardy is a soldier, who ends up in NZ. He has many adventures, and there is also a bit of romance. His wife Mette is a ‘Scandi’ from Denmark who came after the war to find a better place to live, and perhaps find a husband. She does but there are many ups and downs. Wonderful Maori names of places, and a bit of racism from the colonials, all interspersed.
August 29, 2020
Wendy Wilson writes engaging characters and highlights the risks and challenges of frontier life in 1870s New Zealand. Her main characters are respectful of the hearts of people and the different nationalities that came together to form modern New Zealand, including the original Maori people. She engages the reader with intense action and danger, while showing a love for the land and places of the southern North island.
July 25, 2021
Really enjoyed this book as I learnt a lot of things I probably should have been taught in school.
Having lived around these areas it was great to be able to visualise it as the story went along.
Very well written & totally enjoyable.
Thanks Wendy I'm off to buy some more stories about Frank & Mette.
Having lived around these areas it was great to be able to visualise it as the story went along.
Very well written & totally enjoyable.
Thanks Wendy I'm off to buy some more stories about Frank & Mette.
December 10, 2021
Very interesting books about New Zeeland. The author is well prepared in historical events. I managed the first book, but the second I gf at about 60%. The firsdt book had a reasonable happy ending but these are not, in my opinion, feel good books.
October 20, 2021
Interesting historical novels of the founding big New Zealand.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews