Short cuts

There’s clearly money in them thar insider White House thrillers. First it was Bill Clinton palling up three years ago with literary conveyor belt James Patterson for The President is Missing (has anyone seen Monica?), which was followed by this year’s The President’s Daughter. Now there’s STATE OF TERROR, by Hillary Rodham Clinton and experienced Canadian crime novelist Louise Penny (Macmillan, $32.99). A novice secretary of state joins the administration of her rival, a president inaugurated after four years of American leadership that shrank from the world stage. Sounds familiar, but then: “A series of terrorist attacks throws the global order into disarray, and the secretary is tasked with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy.”

Even though the kiwi’s scientific name, Apteryx, means “wingless”, it does have them: they’re just tiny and retain a single claw, which the bird uses to tuck its bill into when it sleeps. You can see this – and the internal organs and tissues of tuatara, bumblebees and trees in all their gruesome glory – in the busy Dave Gunson’s clear and informative INSIDE NEW ZEALAND WILDLIFE (Bateman Books, $19.99), aimed at eightto 12-year-olds. Not sure the lenticular see-inside-a-takahē-head cover is strictly necessary, but it’s definitely eye-catching.

Also aimed at younger people is Mandy Hager’s lucid and well-designed PROTEST! SHAPING AOTEAROA (OneTree House, $40), which covers the history of dissent in this country, from Hōne Heke to climate change. Hager, an awardwinning author of mostly young-adult fiction, recalls standing aged about six with her brother, Nicky, and two sisters to try to protect an ancient native. It’s a great reminder of all the battles, from suffrage to land protests, the Clyde Dam, gay rights and mining, that have been fought in our supposedly don’t-make-a-fuss nation. l