One of the strengths of Purgatory is the attention to detail Rosetta Allan has brought to bear. Photo / Bruce Nicholson
One of the strengths of Purgatory is the attention to detail Rosetta Allan has brought to bear. Photo / Bruce Nicholson

You could dismiss the current deluge of works of New Zealand historical fiction as a mere fad were it not for the interesting and ingenious things our authors are doing with it.
Memorable examples are Hamish Clayton's incantatory Wulf, Eleanor Catton's highly laminated The Luminaries, Lawrence Patchett's boundary-crossing short stories - and now Rosetta Allan's superb debut, Purgatory.

 Unpromisingly, the main character of Purgatory is dead. John Finnigan was killed along with his mother and two of his brothers by James Stack in a notorious incident historically known as the 1865 Otahuhu Murders. The dead Finnigans are haunting their backyard, biding their in-between time, as John's Ma explains to him, until their remains have been found and their sins cleansed by prayer. Stack, the man who murdered them, is living in their cottage, brazening out the suspicions of neighbours, surviving Finnigans and the local constabulary.

 Purgatory is largely James Stack's back story, from his childhood in Ireland apprenticed to his father as he murdered and buried "wanderers" - fugitives from famine-stricken regions of Ireland - through his time with the 65th Regiment of the British Army fighting the Land Wars in New Zealand, leading up to the night of the murders.
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