Mind hunter

As part of his job, New Zealand crime thriller writer JP Pomare spends a lot of time thinking about pathological behaviour, trying to figure out why people do bad things. And, on the phone from his home in Melbourne, Pomare is also on the job, chatting about his new book, The Wrong Woman.

With his two-year-old daughter, Blake, burbling away in the background, Pomare is warm and generous with his time, which, in terms of work commitments, is already pinned down until 2024.

His fifth novel in as many years, The Wrong Woman confirms his growing confidence as a writer, combining psychological acuity and interesting characters with a slick, unpredictable narrative.

Before he got into crime, Pomare, who was born Josh, used to write what he called “shitty literary stories”, emulating “the dead white men” he’d been reading, like Kurt Vonnegut and Samuel Beckett.

But he realised he might be able to build a bigger readership by crafting