One of the most remarkable books ever written about crime, race, religious voodoo, and the New Zealand way of life and death is the Ngati Dread trilogy by journalist Angus Gillies. He self-published these three very strange and quite epic accounts of a five-year period (1985-1990) when there was a kind of Maori Rasta uprising … Read more
By day, Newshub’s Angus Gillies is a mild-mannered, smoothie-guzzling news producer. But his alter ego is as the author of violent and hard-boiled crime fiction. His short novels Just Breathe and Boom and Bust reveal Auckland’s underbelly, as does his latest book, Good Cop, Bad Cop. Where does a part-time, wannabe crime writer look for … Read more
We conclude our week-long coverage of the Angus Gillies trilogy Ngati Dread in unhappy circumstances. Here endeth the Spinoff Review of Books’ week-long coverage of the Ngati Dread books about the Rasta uprising in Ruatoria in the late 1980s, and it endeth badly, kind of bitterly. Thus the headline, taken from an angry email. Don’t you … Read more
A personal essay by Talia Marshall (Rangitane ki Wairau, Ngati Kuia) in response to Ngati Dread by Angus Gillies, a journalist who investigated the killings, arsons, and various assorted apocalyptic madness during the Rasta reign of terror in Ruatoria: “A book about stoners you should never read stoned.” Ruatōria. Ruatōrea, a place or an idea, a Valhalla … Read more
The live email interview is a form which no one seems to practice but will almost certainly revolutionise journalism, possibly. It has the zip and tension of meeting in the flesh, and writing questions and answers adds a kind of literary dimension. This interview with Angus Gillies took place last night (Monday). Gillies is a TV3 … Read more
One of the most remarkable books ever written about crime, race, religious voodoo, and the New Zealand way of life and death is the Ngati Dread trilogy by journalist Angus Gillies. He self-published these three very strange and quite epic accounts of a five-year period (1985-1990) when there was a kind of Maori Rasta uprising … Read more