After a very stormy start to the week, summer returned. In the Wellington region we have been fortunate, as these storms have mostly avoided us. Perhaps it is because this is the capital and we already have the government causing enough suffering, so the weather gods show us some mercy.

After some frustrating emails back and forth with the upper echelons of the police, I finally secured a meeting with two detectives last week. That was brilliant. I gathered a wealth of invaluable material from our conversation, and they promised to help with any further clarifications or extra information if needed.

It often seems to work like this: the people doing the real work on the front line are mostly decent, practical professionals, while middle management and senior levels can become obstacles. Not because they protect the front line, but because they protect themselves.

One vital piece of information from the detectives immediately sent me back to the keyboard. It helped me resolve a plot hole I had long been aware of but had not managed to fix. Their explanation made the solution both simpler and more chilling, and for that I am deeply grateful.

Back on Memory Lane

I have had the great pleasure of renewing an ongoing conversation with a friend from my teenage years who is now retired and, no doubt, wondering what on earth just happened to the decades in between. I will not mention his name, as he is also a subscriber to this newsletter.

This newly rekindled connection has brought back a flood of memories—things I thought I had forgotten. It has been slightly uncanny to discover how vividly these fragments of the past have been preserved in my mind. Even more striking is how closely they connect to my present ways of thinking.

We often believe that the present moment is all that matters, but the present is really just a bubble floating on the surface of our accumulated experiences. Perhaps that is why I have always been a storyteller—a liar on the surface but a bearer of truth underneath. Stories are lies told to reveal truth. In fābulā vēritās inest.

When we encounter the ghosts of the past, something is reborn—pleasant or unsettling, but in any case essential to the journey.

An Outsider’s Search for Meaning

I have always been someone who does not quite belong—an outsider. I write because writing allows me to belong to my characters, their lives, and the circumstances they inhabit. The more I write, the clearer this becomes.

Over the weekend, I attended a small conference organised by the Buddhist community I practise with. I almost wrote the Buddhist community I am a member of, but then I paused. This community of practitioners, Soka Gakkai International, has been a lifeline to me since 1990—a way to renew myself, recharge my batteries, and transform my life profoundly. I am a proud member, and I am proud of what it stands for and how it has helped millions of people change their lives for the better.

Yet I realised that I do not quite belong there either. I remain an outsider even within that diverse, inspiring, and deeply supportive community. Is this a paradox?

I think not. I choose to be a member, and decades of active Buddhist practice have shown me that it works and that it is an organisation the world needs more than ever. The organisation to promote peace, culture and education. But as an individual, I remain slightly apart. I am deeply committed to its goals and teachings, yet I still observe it with an outsider’s eye.

Perhaps that is the storyteller’s curse: never quite part of the story, yet compelled to tell it so that others may feel they belong.

Does this make me sad? Not in the least. My happiness comes from practising Buddhism, but my joy arises from the stories I tell and share with you. They walk beside me—I am alone, but never lonely.

Then there are those moments of serendipity, like meeting an old friend from the distant past—remembering how we once sat in a sauna playing chess or listening to Beethoven at a summer cottage, dreaming about what we would do with our lives. It is neither belonging nor longing, but a prolonging of the journey into the depths of our lives and why they matter.

It is Indra’s Net in action: touch one pearl and every shining jewel in the net moves, reflecting everything else and creating meaning from that single touch.

Act One Is Done

Last night I completed Act One of The Māori Murders – Death of Dreams. It was hard work, but I love the emotional rollercoaster that writing creates. Living through the lives—and deaths—of my characters is a privilege.

I cannot wait to finish the book and publish it for you to read. This instalment leans more toward a thriller than a cosy mystery. It is also darker. In the Pekka Wall series, this is the volume where the thematic crisis pushes everything toward a point of no return. It prepares the ground for the fifth book, which will form the climax of the series, followed by the sixth, which will bring either resurrection or resolution—depending on how you look at it.

Tonight I will begin Act Two. My fingers are already itching to type.

Hopefully next week this newsletter will arrive from MailerLite instead of Beehiiv. There is nothing wrong with Beehiiv, but I have discovered that MailerLite is a better fit for my needs. Beehiiv is unbelievably powerful, and I probably use about five per cent of its capabilities. Fingers crossed I find the time to set MailerLite up before the next newsleter is due.

Cheers,
Janus

Janus Lucky
www.januslucky.com

The video of the week

I love these little fellas. It is soothing to watch them to pick eggs and tell about chicken after I have been murdering people on the page. Williamson’s Quacking Eggs is a hilarious collection of short videoas about two brothers, Edward and Reuben living their lives on a Scottish farm. Utterly delightful boys and brilliant videos. I hope I had been such a delightful child but unfortulantely I wasn’t as my paretns would have told you when they were alive and my relatives know for sure.

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