What is this about?
Sticks and Stones is a fast-paced mystery set in Melbourne that introduces us to the Missing Persons Unit in the middle of a missing person’s case that is confusing everyone. Then another woman goes missing….
What else is this about?
Wrapped around this fast-paced case is an introduction to Emmett, his family and some of his team. You can’t help but feel something else is coming for them ….
Blurb
‘He didn’t have to be normal, the boy realised. He just had to pretend.’
It’s winter in Melbourne and Detective Emmett Corban is starting to regret his promotion to head of the Missing Persons Unit, as the routine reports pile up on his desk.
So when Natale Gibson goes missing, he’s convinced this is the big case he’s been waiting for – the woman’s husband and parents insist the devoted mother would never abandon her children, and her personal accounts remain untouched.
But things aren’t all they seem. The close-knit Italian family is keeping secrets – none bigger than the one Natale has been hiding.
Just as the net seems to be tightening, the investigation is turned on its head. The body of a woman is found . . . then another.
What had seemed like a standard missing person’s case has turned into a frightening hunt for a serial killer, and time is running out.
But to really understand these shocking crimes, Emmett and his team will need to delve back through decades of neglect – back to a squalid inner-city flat, where a young boy is left huddling over his mother’s body . . .
I featured Sticks and Stones in Can’t Wait Wednesday pick earlier this year, and I am so glad I did. This book is a mystery, wrapped around an introduction to Emmett and Cindy — he is the head of a Missing Person’s Unit, and she is heading back into the workforce as a photographer.
On the surface, they are a happy family, except Cindy resents that Emmett has a good job, one that he enjoys, while she finds herself getting into the workforce, and still shouldering most of the responsibility of their young son — Nicholas — school, sports and everything else.
So what exactly is happening?
As head of the Missing Person’s Unit, when the book opens Emmett is trying to find a somewhat flighty woman called Rosemary. Her brother Daniel reported her missing, and Emmett and his team are at a dead end — which is when another missing case comes in: Natale.
Soon enough, these women become murder victims, with an increasingly frustrated Emmett and his team working the case.
And don’t worry, the boy mentioned in the blurb is mentioned often in the book and ups the creepy factor considerably — and emphasises the theme of family running through this book.
There are multiple POVs to this story in addition to Emmett and Cindy, and Firkin is skilled at throwing suspicion on the various players in this story. It did take awhile for the multiple POVs to settle into a sort of rhythm, but in the end it added to the tension and the pacing in the story.
Weirdly enough, this really is a story about family
Emmett is a devoted father, who happens to have a high pressure job that is increasing demanding too much of his time. He recognises as much, but in the middle of an investigation, he cannot actually just drop everything to go home. He doesn’t realise how unhappy Cindy, his wife is, or what that unhappiness is leading to.
Cindy for her part is enjoying being out in the working world again, but stumbles into an age old issue women will recognise getting back into the working world — trusting the wrong person. However, it doesn’t change that she is unhappy, and that Nicholas isn’t the be all and end all of her world. I feel like she is conditioned to think like that.
Given the amount of time spent on Cindy and Emmett as separate characters, I’m wondering where that is going to go next. Inevitably I think marriage problems and family issues, but I hope it’s something else — something more. Breaking a couple up is easy; making them stick together and work through their issues is far more interesting, but I am so often wrong about this, so who knows.
I liked both Cindy and Emmett, and their characterisation. No-one is in the wrong and no-one is completely correct in what they do, so it makes it easy to understand and relate to their issues.
The case too revolves around family — around wanting the idea family, and forgetting that reality is something far different. However, no spoilers!
Just go read Sticks and Stones! It’s out now!
I wanna read it now! I might try it sometime as audiobook. I don’t know why but I love mystery kinda books in audio. 😀
I like listening to audios too! Mysteries are the best on audio, there’s a whole different level of tension wiht it.
I love a good mystery. It sounds like this one has a really strong character arc too!
It really does — there’s a strong theme of family, and that makes all the characters a little bit more fascinating.
Ooh…this one does sound really good. Like that it revolves around family. 🙂
It’s an interesting theme, and the author goes into it in different ways, so it was a good read!~
I like the sound of this one. Is it a new series?
It is! Katherine Firkin is an Australian journo working in New York.
I remember that creepy boy from when you featured this previously! Glad to hear you enjoyed this one! Sounds like a good start to a series.
That creepy boy is actually much creepier than I thought LOL! I didn’t want to go into that in the review bc it would be spoilers, but that kid add this undercurrent of tension that you feel building to something.
This sounds fantastic. I always love it when a mystery has so many different layers. The family focus definitely has my attention as well.
Great review and I think I want to meet this creepy boy. Thanks for putting this on my radar!