The Crime of Huey Dunstan

A young man stands in the dock accused of murder. A brutal murder, apparently motiveless.

When Professor Chesney, a psychologist specialising in trauma, is called as an expert witness, he is at first baffled. This young man, Huey Dunstan, was a bubbly, smiling child not so long ago. What brought him to bludgeon an old man to death? Why does he seem determined at all cost to incriminate himself?

As Ches delves into Huey’s past, with the sensitive insight that perhaps only a blind man could have, a psychological mystery unravels. And the jury is asked to consider an unthinkable defence.

Inspired by an actual criminal case, The Crime of Huey Dunstan takes us beyond questions of guilt and innocence to thought-provoking ideas on justice and humanity. An emotionally engaging, beautifully written novel from one of New Zealand’s most revered writers.

Praise for The Crime of Huey Dunstan:

genuinely hard to put down.

Sunday Age

…an engrossing and surprising novel with both compassion and provocation. It is a powerful courtroom and complex psychological drama…

Courier Mail

Sensitively wrought insights and haunting meditations on the nature of humanity and justice are not things you generally expect to find in high-velocity, page-turner crime novels. Unless, of course, the author happens to be James McNeish.

West Australian

James McNeish is a civilised urbane writer, with a greater cosmopolitan sense of people’s global interaction than many other New Zealand writers.

The Press