Tūrangi author Jen Shieff has released her third crime fiction novel The Final Call. Photo / David Beck
In 2015, Jen Shieff gave up her job of 20 years as a senior government policy analyst to chase her long-held dream of being an author.
She began investigating historic crimes, real and imagined, with the idea of writing a series of standalone stories, set 10 years apart in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
She published The Gentlemen's Club in 2015, The Vanishing Act in 2018, and this week released the third and final book in the series, The Final Call.
It's 1979. Auckland is on the brink. Fashion and music are bursting through previous boundaries but prostitution is still illegal and male homosexuality is still a crime. Who is out to destroy Carmel O'Sullivan and her sister Tess, top call-girls in Rita Saunders' gentlemen's club?
"When I started out I wanted to write crime stories because they are the most gripping," Jen says.
"I didn't quite trust myself as a storyteller to keep people interested so I thought I'd let the crimes do the storytelling. I thought I would pair crimes, one hideous and one not so hideous. All through my books we have prostitution as the non-hideous crime and in The Gentlemen's Club we have paedophilia - I got the most horrible out of the way first - and in all of them we have murder."
Having learned from her first two novels and gained confidence as a storyteller, Jen is "delighted" with how The Final Call turned out.
"It looks fantastic, it's been beautifully edited and a few advanced copies went out - people are very enthusiastic about it. I'm feeling really happy about it."
The Final Call is influenced by Auckland's famous madam Flora MacKenzie. In researching the book, Jen discovered that Flora left her landmark property in Ring Tce, St Marys Bay, to the man who delivered her whisky.
Jen met the real whisky deliverer, who requires anonymity, but was willing to tell stories of his friendship with Flora. Jen invented him as the character Istvan Ziegler and he is intriguingly woven into the novel.
"I write for other people's enjoyment, I don't write for myself. I might not have written The Final Call had it not been for the people who told me they enjoyed my first two novels, saying things like 'what's going to happen to Istvan?'.
"They, along with Istvan and some of my other characters who were keen to reappear, were my main reason to sit down and write for eight to 10 hours almost every day during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, and for several months subsequently."
The Final Call delves into the past to say things about a world that are still relevant 40 years later; for prostitutes, homosexuals and independent women, as well as for brothers, sisters and lovers.
"I wanted to write about courageous women," Jen says.
"It turns out a lot of courageous women, in my understanding of them, are lesbian and we got into it that way. This novel touches on male homosexuality as well, the illegality of that and the horrific things people had to endure because of having to hide themselves.
"It's always been easier for women, in terms of the law, but not easier in terms of attitudes. I'm fascinated by attitudes and how they've changed. I'm not on a platform or trying to preach, I'm just trying to show how things have changed and needed to change."
The Gentlemen's Club and The Vanishing Act were finalists in the Ngaio Marsh Awards for crime writing.
The founder of the awards and author of Southern Cross Crime Craig Sisterson says: "Weaving together exceptional historical detail and social issues in The Gentlemen's Club, Shieff has been compared to the likes of Sarah Waters. She pierces the veneer of polite post-war society, lifting the skirts on class prejudice and other social ills."
Jen plans to continue writing but says The Final Call, fittingly titled, will be her last crime fiction novel.
The Final Call is now being sold in all good bookstores New Zealand-wide, including Paper Plus Taupō and Naylors Bookshop in Tūrangi.