We’re excited to be giving away two copies of Softly Calls the Devil by Chris Blaketo our GrownUps members!
To be in the draw, simply make sure you’re a GrownUps member, signed up to our newsletter, and fill in your details at the bottom of the page.
About Softly Calls the Devil
From New Zealand police detective Chris Blake comes a dark, gripping, intricate crime thriller set on the South Island’s wild and remote west coast.
In real life, Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Blake runs the Behavioural Science unit, formerly known as the Criminal Profiling Squad, for the New Zealand Police in Wellington. He was always Chris Blake, but readers first knew him as Nathan Blackwell, a pseudonym used to help distance the fictional crimes from reality. Now, for the first time, he writes under his own name in this fast-paced crime thriller, Softly Calls the Devil, out on 4 November. Outside of the writing, the cases were real, the people were real, and the tragedies were real. His fiction debut, The Sound of Her Voice, gripped readers with its raw, unflinching authenticity, as it was drawn from the depths of his lived experience. Now, Chris Blake steps out of the shadows. No pseudonym. Just the man who fell into the world of criminal investigations and met enough people on all sides of society’s harshest fences to tell the story.
About Softly Calls the Devil:
Things are going well for Matt Buchanan. After some hard times, life is peaceful as sole-charge constable for the small, isolated settlement of Haast on New Zealand’s wild West Coast. He’s made friends among the locals, won their trust. He keeps their little world safe. He’s working in spectacular surroundings – the fierce Tasman Sea, the dense beech forest, the dark, cold swamps, the snowy Southern Alps. But then his much-loved predecessor, Gus, is discovered beside a river with a bullet through his head. He’d been looking into a disturbing murder-suicide from 1978: the parents’ bodies were found, but not their daughter’s. Tensions rise, there are more deaths, people are threatened, memories surface of a cult that went horribly wrong. Matt finds himself pursuing a case that’s well outside his remit, taking him to places he’d rather not revisit. Having long shunned his own demons, he is desperate not to face them again, but when confronted by the devil himself, he must take action, rediscover something of the person he was – for his own sake and to save those he loves.
Praise:
‘Softly Calls the Devil is a cracking crime tale replete with procedural insight and an engaging, authentic voice. I had no idea where the story was going, but I knew I was in safe hands; I’d follow Chris Blake anywhere.‘ J.P. POMARE
‘Chris Blake harnesses his insider perspective alongside substantial storytelling chops to craft a layered rural noir tale set on Aotearoa’s wild West Coast … A crime novel that is about much more than the investigation of a crime (or crimes), where Blake illustrates the shards of trauma that police absorb over the course of their careers, and the importance of connection and community … This is world-class crime fiction. Highly recommended.’ CRAIG SISTERSON
Author note:
‘I’ve always enjoyed darker crime stories. I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s something along the lines of, if I can be comfortable with that, then reality is usually a bit more palatable. Escapism is important, we want to empathise with the characters, we want the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. But I still like the main character to be flawed, like all of us, and pay quite the price before there is any kind of conclusion. That’s where we can find a bit of similarity as readers, however crazy the plot.
I have always enjoyed rural crime, whether it’s set in the Southern USA, Australia, New Zealand, or somewhere else. They’re my go-tos, anything set in a small town with some quirky but endearing characters and a crime to set it all on fire. John Hart, James Lee Burke, Jane Harper, and everyone they have inspired since.
I wanted to showcase a bit of New Zealand – the people, the towns, the landscape. My wife is from Canterbury, so I had some help with the South Island and its geography. We travelled to Haast and spent a lot of time checking out swamps and beech forests and rivers. It’s a spectacular area, an amazing spot, but let’s not share the secret too much and ruin it … hopefully the horror in the story will keep the masses away and the locals happy!’
About the Author:
Chris Blake was born and raised in Auckland. He served briefly in the New Zealand Army’s Reserve Force before joining the New Zealand Police in 2006. His debut novel, The Sound of Her Voice (published under the pseudonym Nathan Blackwell), was a double finalist in the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards for best novel and best first novel. Chris was an assistant storyboarder for season two of the crime drama television series, The Gulf, released in 2021.
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You must be a GrownUps member and subscribed to our newsletter to be eligible to enter.
The competition closes on 14th January 2026. Winners will be notified via email by 15th January 2026.
It is your responsibility to provide a correct New Zealand postal address for prize delivery. GrownUps is not responsible for prizes sent to incorrect addresses.
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