Black Hands

Book excerpt: This is the story of a mass-murder that divided a nation. It's a story that began in a rickety old home on a cold June morning in 1994, where five members of a seemingly ordinary New Zealand family were gunned down. There were two suspects. One lay dead from a single bullet to the head. The other was the only survivor: David Bain. Since then the country has asked: Who killed the Bain family? David, or his father Robin? And why? Award-winning journalist Martin van Beynen has covered the Bain story closely for decades. His 2017 Stuff podcast, Black Hands - based on the manuscript for this book - was a runaway success in New Zealand and overseas, downloaded more than 4 million times and topping the charts in New Zealand and around the world. Now, van Beynen brings the story up to date for 2020, exploring the case from start to finish, picking through evidence old and new, plumbing the mysteries and motives, interviewing never-before-spoken-to witnesses and laying out the complex police investigation and judicial processes, seeking to finally answer the question: Who was the killer? Black Hands is a riveting read from the first word to the last, by a skilled writer who knows his subject inside out. “If anyone can pass judgement it can only be those who sat through the whole trial.” - David Bain in New Idea