Captivating Rural Crime: Read Our Review of Stone Town by Margaret Hickey

Stone Town is a captivating new rural crime drama from the author of the bestselling Cutters End.

With its gold-rush history long in the past, Stone Town has 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 property developer, whose controversial plan to buy up local land means few are surprised he ended up dead.

However, his gruesome murder is overshadowed by a mystery consuming the entire nation: the disappearance of Detective Sergeant Natalie Whitsed.

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?

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…

Margaret Hickey’s 2021 debut, Cutters End was a pitch-perfect outback noir, set against a vivid and atmospheric desert landscape. It became a Better Reading favourite, and we were looking forward to what she delivered next. One year later, Stone Town has hit the shelves and proved that Hickey is here to stay. This is an assured thriller from an excellent writer.

Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti returns, with this book set a year after Cutters End, although this can certainly be read as a standalone. Ariti has moved back to his hometown after the death of his mother, but a dead property developer and a missing policewoman mean his posting will be anything but quiet.

For those who have already read Cutters End, you’ll enjoy Ariti’s character development here, and settle into what is obviously going to be an outstanding series. For those readers starting with Stone Town, I promise you’ll be adding Cutters End to your TBR pile afterwards.

Once again, Hickey expertly builds the tension to an explosive finale that will linger with you for days.

Margaret Hickey recently hosted our What Are You Reading segment – go and check her out. She’s a lovely author who deserves every success that is coming her way. Stone Town is excellent, and her next novel is going straight to the top of my to-read pile.

Buy a copy of Stone Town here.