Hunters, Rogues & Heroes - Connor McKenzie
NZ Outdoor - Hunting Yarns from Favourite New Zealand Author
Aug 24, 2009
Hunters, Rogues and Heroes is a collection of some of McKenzie’s stories that have appeared in NZ Outdoor Hunting magazine over the past ten years. Touted in NZ Outdoor Hunting as the magazine’s favourite author, McKenzie has hunted and fished in Alaska, Canada and the United States as well as New Zealand.
Hunters, Rogues & Heroes is About the People who Inhabit its Pages
These easy-to-read yarns are loosely based on the author’s adventures and misadventures during more than 50 years of hunting the backcountry and byways of his adopted country. In the introduction on the first page, McKenzie reveals his more reflective concerns when he states that he is opposed to the use of 1080 poison, the felling of native timber, and the introduction of over-zealous gun laws.
McKenzie says that some of these stories are even true – though it’s for readers to figure out where facts are cast aside and fiction takes over for the sake of a well-spun yarn. Hunters, Rogues & Heroes is a truly appropriate title because the stories are more about the motley collection of people who inhabit its pages than the activities of hunting, shooting and fishing.
McKenzie’s gentle swipes at pretentiousness, piousness, snobbishness and many other ‘ess’s’ and ‘isms’ are refreshingly non-PC. Many of the stories demonstrate a particular insight into human behaviour. The honourable are honoured, the dishonourable dishonoured, old-fashioned values are celebrated, cruelty gets its come-uppance, the truth is exaggerated and the facts are minimised all for the sake of unfolding the story in McKenzie’s uniquely laconic style.
Short, Easy-to-read Yarns to Enjoy at the End of a Busy Day
There are 32 stories over 186 pages so these are short reads, just the thing to pick up at the end of a busy day or to take to bed without having to slog through pages and pages of text before a plot is revealed. McKenzie manages to get his point across without the use of any of the expletives so often found in today's literature. Many of the stories relate to incidents that happened decades ago but are neatly tied up with a twist in the tail that brings readers into the more recent past.
Hunters, Rogues and Heroes is certainly a blokey book, but women who are not too precious about feminism and sexism should also find something to enjoy in these easy-going yarns where tongue-in-cheek fun is often poked at both sexes and all ages and occupations. McKenzie lives in the Bay of Plenty, still hunts actively and has no thoughts of retirement.
Hunters, Rogues and Heroes is well designed and illustrated with classic colour and black and white photographs. A Raupo book, published in New Zealand by the Penguin Group. ISBN 9780143011415.
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