Stone Town
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4.0 • 21 Ratings
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
With its gold rush history long in the past, Stone Town has definitely seen better days. And it's now in the headlines for all the wrong reasons . . .
When three teenagers stumble upon a body in dense bushland one rainy Friday night, Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti's hopes for a quiet posting in his old home town are shattered. The victim is Aidan Sleeth, a local property developer, whose controversial plans to buy up Blackwood land means few are surprised he ended up dead.
However his gruesome murder is overshadowed by the mystery consuming the entire nation: the disappearance of Detective Sergeant Natalie Whitsted.
Natalie had been investigating the celebrity wife of crime boss Tony 'The Hook' Scopelliti when she vanished. What did she uncover? Has it cost her her life? And why are the two Homicide detectives, sent from the city to run the Sleeth case, so obsessed with Natalie's fate?
But following a late-night call from his former boss, Mark is sure of one thing: he's now in the middle of a deadly game . . .
'Astonishingly assured crime debut. A pitch perfect outback noir, set against a vivid and atmospheric desert landscape . . . The book's explosive finale with linger with your for days.' Weekend Australian on Cutters End
'Past and the present collide to create a gripping tale of murder and intrigue.' Chris Hammer, author of Scrublands on Cutters End
'This smart, affecting tale owes more to Scandi noir fiction with its sinister twists and aching characters . . . a tour de force.' Australian Women's Weekly on Cutters End
Customer Reviews
Solid Aussie detective fiction
Author
Australian. Playwright with PhD in creative writing. This, her sophomore novel, features the same police sergeant she introduced in her debut, Cutter’s End (2021).
Plot
Our homie Mark Ariti is now living in his deceased mother’s home, and working as the local copper, in a small fictional town in rural South Australia. His lawyer wife has left him for a new bloke, but he still gets to see his kids (6 and 8) on weekends etc. The story opens at night in heavy rain (we used to have heavy rain, now we have rain events). Some local kids out looking for a barking owl (they’re barking mad to be out in the rain if you ask me) find a local real estate agent/land developer dead (shotgun blasts to the head will do that.) Our boy gets dragged out of bed. Starts investigating. Two homicide detectives from Adelaide arrive to give him a hand, and to continue to investigate the disappearance of a female police officer that’s getting a lot of press coverage. The last signal from her mobile phone was in Stone Town, which is close by. They don’t tell Ariti that at first. Yada, yada. Investigation proceeds. Real estate deals gone wrong. Upset greenies. Crime gangs. A police insider leaking info to the crims. The aforementioned policewoman, whose arm was broken during her abduction, is locked in a below ground mineshaft. Yada, yada. More stuff happens. The end.
Prose
As I wrote in my review of Cutter’s End, “competent, well crafted prose. Reasonable pace. Twists not that twisty. Ms H draws on all known outback Australian crime tropes and then some.”
Characters
Mark is developed well from a limited base in Cutter’s End. The other characters are developed well enough for purpose.
Bottom line
Solid Aussie detective fiction that breaks no new ground.