In Old School Tie a murder sheds new light on the decades old suicide of a school girl, and the Sydney mafia go head to head with a Maori gang, the Blood Drinkers.

The race is on in Inside Dope to reclaim a shipment of cocaine that went missing after the drop off went wrong years ago. The cocaines links to the doomed Mr Asia syndicate ensures that the men and women searching for the cocaine are as varied as a ex-cop just released from a Bangkok jail, a rogue DEA man, a CIA assassin, an Auckland drug kingpin and Tito Ihaka.

Guerilla Season sees urban terrorism on New Zealand shores, with the Aotearoa People's Army leaving a murderous trail in their wake.

Each book has a ensemble cast of characters, and almost all of them are rather unique, and provide some mad-cap action. There's maverick detective Tito Ihaka who manages to ruffle almost everyone's feathers, and his boss Finbar McGrail, a dour Irishman who provides the counter balance to Ihaka, as well as a ruthless PR man and countless shady charaters and naive oppotunists.

In these books, the story is the focus. There's plenty of links interwoven between the characters which provides 3 great whodunnits that keep you guessing. Although I'd worked out who the ring leader was about half way through Guerilla Season I was still guessing the 'why' when the answers were revealed.

There is plenty of humour and some great one-liners in these books, and Thomas even weaves some elements of truth into his plots. The Mr Asia syndicate was real, and the bombing of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior is included in Guerilla Season.

While some of the plot lines were a little over the top for the New Zealand context (CIA assassins, rogue DEA agents, urban terrorism), these books were a lot of fun to read. ( )

INSIDE DOPE by Paul Thomas won the inaugural Ned Kelly Award and I blinked and then struggled to get my hands on a copy. I managed to track down GUERILLA SEASON years ago, and then not so long ago at the end of a long quest I found a copy of INSIDE DOPE. But still the search went on. The first book in the IHAKA series - OLD SCHOOL TIE continued to evade me. So you can imagine the joy when THE IHAKA TRILOGY arrived. I was so pleased that it jumped a considerable number of books to the top of the reviewing pile.

I just love these books. I love the settings, I love the humour, the quality of the plots and all of the characters. I love the way that Tito Ihaka is a central character, but not necessarily THE central character. These are very much ensemble cast books with Tito and others never taking the entire focus. I also love the way that these books are not necessarily straight-forward police procedurals, although they do involve police investigations (and ex-police investigations) and journalistic investigations and a whole bunch of things happening all at once. Making Ihaka not the entire focus of these books is quite an achievement as he's a larger than life sort of bloke. Maori, toe treading, unconventional, he's balanced beautifully against his very proper, very buttoned up, very Irish, dour boss Ulsterman Finbar McGrail. These two are a wonderful unlikely pairing - very very different, yet understanding of each other and able to work together in the most unlikely of partnerships.

Each of the three books in the trilogy stand up really well on their own, but presented in this book together, they also show just how much Paul Thomas must have enjoyed writing these stories. OLD SCHOOL TIE is all about the suspected suicide of a man who had it all. It's not until freelance journalist Reggie Sparks' investigation connects this man to the 24-year old suicide of a teenage girl at a private school ball, that things really start to move. This opening book sets up a style, a series of characters and a great sense of New Zealand place. Oh and a feud between the Sydney Mafia and a Maori gang. The second book, INSIDE DOPE, involves a race for the lost treasure of the Mr Asia drug syndicate between a rogue American narcotics agent, the CIA, Ihaka, an ex-cop and assorted family and hangers on. The final book GUERILLA SEASON has Ihaka looking into a series of very high profile murders, all in the name of an unknown terrorist group.

Cleverly each of these books weaves a little truth into the fiction (Mr Asia / the terrorist group with connections to the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior), whilst also incorporating a hefty dose of humour, some sad moments, some clever plots and some magnificently lunatic goings on. You can probably tell from this review - I loved the two books I'd previously read, I loved reading them again, I loved the first book and I loved having all 3 in the one trilogy. And it was most definitely not a trial to read three Ihaka books in a row - it's a bit of a trial knowing that's it for the time being. Hopefully just the time being.

(Paul Thomas is the author of seven works of fiction. In addition to the Ihaka novels there are two Sydney-based crime novels (Final Cut and The Empty Bed), as well as collection of short stories (Sex Crimes) and a non-crime novel (Work in Progress).) ( )