This book is not for the faint hearted. It starts with brutality and stomachs turning violence against a woman. It's almost too much to read. I don't think I could recommend this title to many people.

I do love an Australian outback story. This one is so well written it keeps you gripped whilst reading it, just loved it and kept me engrossed throughout.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley but the review is entirely my own.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Fantastic crime novel set in in Australia. You will love this book. I couldn’t put it down. The author has a great writing style. The book is very well written. Great plot to get your teeth into. Highly recommend this book.

An atmospheric, fast paced mystery thriller drew me in from the start. The opening and title sets the stage for the twist filled story set in a modern though rundown Outback town. A debut novel by an author who joins the ranks of other Australian noir writers.

This brilliantly descriptive and atmospheric Australian thriller is set in the dusty outback town of Cobb, which has declined over the years and now houses a detention centre for those people who have either entered the country illegally or whose visas have expired etc.

There is much resistance from the local community and the author perfectly and believably captures the ensuing anger, racism and prejudice against the detainees.

When a well liked local school teacher is found dead, apparently stoned to death, suspicion falls on the centre and a former resident of Cobb, D.S George Manolis is sent to investigate. Shocked by the town’s decline, he meets resistance from the town’s police force and locals alike. The author has created a terrifically authentic character in Manolis and together with the setting, is one of the strengths of this novel.

I really enjoyed this totally gripping story, the narrative flows and the reader is drawn into the utterly convincing hot and hostile setting. I definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading more from Peter Papathanasiou.

I’d like to thank the publisher, Quercus Books and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Anyone writing 'Outback Noir' nowadays has some pretty big footprints to follow with the likes of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, and the great Garry Disher having set the bar pretty high and a growing wave of good and great authors emerging.

Debut author Peter Papathanasiou elbows his way to the forefront with an excellent tale that blends a mystery set in the blistering heat of Australia's interior with an exploration of Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and various minorities, including the first peoples of that gigantic land.

Detective Sergeant Georgios ‘George’ Manolis is sent from the big city to his childhood hometown of Cobb, a derelict shadow of its thriving past, to help the local cops investigate a brutal killing with medieval overtones, and douse escalating reprisals against refugees living in limbo in a new-ish detention centre at the northern end of town. Regardless of evidence, many townsfolk are certain of the culprit – it must have been ‘one of them’ in ‘the brown house’.

Manolis is helped and hindered by family friends and the local cops – blustering Sergeant Fyfe, widowed Constable Kerr, and Constable ‘Sparrow’, a young aboriginal man who’s bullied on multiple fronts. Not to mention a local populace that seems pickled in alcohol and prejudice, particularly against anything related to the detention centre, from the 'inmates' to the guards and cleaners and other low-paid outsiders who've come to town to help things run.

Papathanasiou doesn’t pull any punches as he delivers Outback noir that offers not only a good crime storyline but a clear-eyed look at some of the ugly sides of modern life in the ‘Lucky Country’.

The Stoning is ‘outback noir’ at its pitch black most noir!

The small town of Cobb is on the skids. Businesses are struggling, there is a clear racial divide and the additional complication of an immigration centre which hasn’t delivered the jobs and opportunities which were promised. When a primary school teacher is the subject of a brutal attack, DS George Manolis is despatched from the City to solve the crime. Packed full of issues and straight talking dialogue, this is a truly atmospheric slow-burn thriller.

A hugely enjoyable read albeit some of the prose may have benefitted from more editing. I will definitely be looking out for another instalment. A solid 3.5*. Thanks to Netgalley.

This is a very impressive debut from Australian author Peter Papathanasiou. The writing is excellent and The Stoning presents a vivid picture of the outback. Cobb is a small town which has an inefficient police presence, and when the local school teacher is found stoned to death a big city cop, George Manolis, returns to his home time to solve the crime. The novel highlights social and political issues alongside the crime story and the whole is a superb read.

Wow what a shocking start to this Australian thriller set in the outback town of Cobb.

A local school teacher is found dead taped to a tree, but what an appalling death - stoning! Who could have done this horrible thing? Suspicion immediately is laid at the gates of the local refugee centre and a former resident of Cobb, Detective Sergeant George Manolis is sent to investigate. His arrival is met with huge resistance, from the local police force and local people, who seem to just exist almost always totally drunk!

DS Manolis sets to finding out who was responsible for the murder, but meets resistance and trouble the whole time.

The book is disturbing, shocking yet it pulls you along to the end as you want to find out who did this horrible thing to the nice local school teacher, who was only trying to help people to be better.

A great novel by Peter Papathanasiou, I will certainly read more of his.

EXCERPT: Heavy footsteps were soon around her ears, hands on her hair pulling backwards, dragging her limp body further east. They were leaving the oval, heading for the copse of gum trees behind the scoreboard. Dry sheets of sharp bark clawed at her skin, leaving dark red whiplashes across her milky white back. The next sound was of her spine crunching against one of the thick trunks as she was moved into position and fixed with a thick roll of gaffer tape around her shoulders, breasts, torso, thighs, ankles.

She was left there for some time - several minutes. Ample opportunity for her to be found had it not been such a late hour or desolate part of town. She hung there, strung like a puppet. Something began to crawl up her leg.

ABOUT 'THE STONING': A small town in outback Australia wakes to a crime of medieval savagery.

A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb's northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and the local indigenous community, between immigrants and the townies.

Still mourning the recent death of his father, Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate. Within minutes of his arrival, it's clear that Cobb is not the same place he left. Once it thrived, but now it's a poor and derelict dusthole, with the local police chief it deserves. And as Manolis negotiates his new colleagues' antagonism, and the simmering anger of a community destroyed by alcohol and drugs, the ghosts of his past begin to flicker to life.

MY THOUGHTS: Set in the fictional town of Cobb, somewhere in outback Australia, The Stoning is a richly atmospheric story of the brutal stoning to death of a young woman, a much loved and admired teacher in the community.

DS Georgios Manolis is sent out from 'the city' to oversee the investigation, the local police force of three being largely inept and mostly drunk, with the exception of Kate Kerr, the only female on the force. Even she carries a baseball bat in the boot of her car to ward off unwanted attention and even she, initially, resents Manolis' intrusion.

Manolis, a man used to doing things by the book and following procedures, struggles with policing in this small town where there's no chain of command and no recognition given to the need to preserve the scene of the crime or establish a chain of evidence.

The people are a mystery to him. Angry, resentful and bigoted, they seem content to blame Molly's death on the inmates of the local refugee detention centre. After all, it's their sort of crime. But for Manolis, there's a few things that just don't seem to add up.

As much as I loved this story, there were a few things that didn't add up for me either. Molly must have had some friends amongst the townspeople. No mention is made of them, the question is never asked, and thus no one, other than the principal of the school where she worked, is interviewed about her.

Small towns like this thrive on gossip. That is never tapped. And believe me, the men gossip just as much as the women. Georgios could have done with spending a bit more time on a bar stool in the top pub, shouting a few rounds, with his ears open.

And speaking of women, where are they? Other than the dead Molly, Kate the copper, Ida the old gin soak and newspaper thief who found Molly's body, and Vera from the holiday park, there are no women!

I would also have liked a better sense of place. Beyond the fact that we're in the Australian outback, which is two-thirds of Australia, a bloody big place, we have no idea where we are.

But, beyond that, the writing is superb. Manolis portrays an impoverished and dying town, badly impacted by the detention centre meant to bring jobs and prosperity to the area, but which has instead brought crime and drugs and hostility.

I loved the underlying thread of Manolis' family background that runs through this story. In the course of the investigation into Molly's death, he learns more about his own family, and clears up a mystery from his childhood.

The ending to The Stoning was unexpected, but strangely satisfying.

I believe this to be the first in a series featuring Georgios Manolis. I will definitely be in line for the next.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.1

#TheStoning #NetGalley

I: @petepapathanasiou @quercusbooks

T: @peteplastic @QuercusBooks

#australianfiction #contemporaryfiction #crime #detectivefiction #murdermystery #thriller

THE AUTHOR: Peter Papathanasiou was born in northern Greece in 1974 and adopted as a baby to an Australian family. His debut book, a memoir, was published in 2019 as "Son of Mine" by Salt Publishing (UK) and "Little One" by Allen & Unwin (Australia). His debut novel, a work of crime fiction, was published in 2021 as "The Stoning" by MacLehose Press (UK) and Transit Lounge (Australia), and in 2022 by Polar Verlag (Germany). Peter’s writing has otherwise been published by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, The Guardian UK, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Good Weekend, ABC and SBS. He holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from City, University of London; a Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Sciences from The Australian National University (ANU); and a Bachelor of Laws from ANU specialising in criminal law. (Amazon)

DISCLOSURE: Thanks to Quercus Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Stoning for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

The hot, desolate and remote location sets the perfect scene for this dark atmospheric read. The story deals with a lot of difficult but current issues regarding immigration, racism and misogyny which I think it manages to do in a sympathetic and realistic way whilst really making you think. It is slow burner of a story which gradually comes together as you get to know the small community and their prejudices although there are still plenty of surprises and twists along the way that keep you reading right to the end.

Subtle it’s not but rather the opposite right from the opening chapter and . If I’m honest it wasn’t for me but I’ve already messaged three of my fellow book group members as it’s so perfect for them I just know! It’s full of issues which DS Manolis along with Sparrow and Kerr are capable of managing if not exactly with ease. I’m sure they will appear in follow on books.

There is just something about small towns in crime fiction novels that will always grab my attention and let’s face it, any crime fiction fan worth their salt is surely swayed by that opening line of the book description. A stoning! In Australia? For real?! WTF!

The outback community of Cobb is a pretty miserable place, to be fair. It seems the residents feel the same way and so they spend pretty much their entire days in the pub, drinking to forget or just because there doesn’t seem to be anything better to do. This apparently includes the local law enforcement, whose incompetence and uselessness really comes to the fore when there is a brutal killing.

Local schoolteacher, Molly, is found tied to a tree and stoned to death. Fingers are pointing to the immigration detention centre just outside of town. Tensions in Cobb were already pretty high, but now they’re only rising. Yet, nobody seems to be doing much of anything. Detective Sergeant George Manolis is sent from the “big city” to help solve this horrific murder but he is met with resistance and silence pretty much every way he turns. Will he be able to solve who killed Molly and why?

‘The Stoning‘ is a really impressive crime fiction debut from Peter Papathanasiou. It oozes atmosphere and you can almost feel the relentless Australian heat rising from the pages. The murder mystery is a complicated one to solve. Just like Manolis, I often became rather frustrated at the lack of evidence and the apparent lack of interest in Molly’s death. I had a theory but in the end, it turned out I was only half right and the ultimate reveal was far, far worse than my wee feeble mind could have imagined.

There is so much more to ‘The Stoning‘ than this murder though. It is incredibly apt for our times but also lays bare atrocities from the past, ultimately making the reader realise that history has taught us absolutely nothing. This small town is overrun by misogyny and racism. Not just towards the residents at the immigrant detention centre but also their own. White versus black, being the Aboriginals in this case. There are often many uncomfortable moments due to this topic but they make for one thought-provoking read.

A compelling murder investigation, a brilliant cast of characters (even if there were a few I really wanted to punch in the face), atmosphere dripping from the pages and topics to make you think … there is so much to like about ‘The Stoning‘. Often harrowing, sometimes heartbreaking, always thought-provoking, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I look forward to the opportunity of hanging out with Manolis again.

A girl is propped up against a tree her body fixed with gaffer tape to hold her up and then stoned to death; later to be found by Ida Jones. Who would have been capable of such a barbaric act against the seemingly sweet and liked school teacher?

Called in from the city to look into the murder, George Manolis return to Cobb, the town of his birth. But the poor "city mouse" has his work cut out to solve this case. Something that will come at a cost. At the centre of the murder investigation lies the new immigration detention Centre. Was an immigrant responsible for this seemingly ritual stoning? It seems like no one wants to cooperate especially the police chief and someone is definitely trying to scare Manolis off.


What an amazingly atmospheric and at times sad read!
At times I could taste the dirt and feel the warm sun on my skin.

"A cloud of grasshoppers swarmed across the verandah, leaping like sprung mousetraps as he walked to the pickup."

Peter Papathanasiou is definitely up there with Chris Hammer and Jane Harper when it comes to outback noir.
I loved every single minute and I'm so excited for the rest of the series!

Thank you to Netgalley and Quercus Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

Detective Manolis, a city detective, is sent back to his outback home-town Cobb to investigate the brutal murder of a local school teacher who was found tied to a tree stoned to death.

Due to the nature of the murder, suspicion immediately falls on the refugees housed in the detention centre on the outskirts of town and the centre goes into lockdown to avoid reprisals from the townsfolk.

Cobb, once a thriving town, has now fallen on very hard times destroyed by drug and alcohol addiction, and as such is completely unrecognisable to Manolis. As the ‘city cop’, Manolis has to manoeuvre the local police forces distrust of him, the locals prejudices, the impenetrable detention centre, as well as the memories of childhood in Cobb and why his family left.

Huge thanks to the publishers for making this book available to me as an ARC.

Grim and gripping, this is a hard edged story of an investigation into a brutal murder in the outback - the stoning of a female teacher. The Stoning paints a picture of a town abandoned - drink and drugs being the only leisure and the recent addition of an asylum seeker detention centre adding to local tensions. Exploring a whole variety of different forms of racism, prejudice and corruption / incompetence, this isn’t a fun read but an absorbing one.

I spotted The Stoning on Twitter and felt myself drawn in by that gorgeous cover. It spoke of hot and dusty desolation and set all my spidey senses atingle. Reading the blurb, I knew it was a done deal. Outback noir? Hell yeah! In a world rife with thrillers of all sorts, I’m always on the look-out for elements that set them apart from all others, and a not-quite-common setting does wonders.

Although I have to admit I don’t think Cobb is really the place to be. For starters, a woman had just been murdered. I mean, murder happens in the best of towns, it’s not something that should prevent us from going somewhere or living there, murder is all around us. Or do you suppose I read too many thrillers? Yet, this particular murder was particularly brutal: this woman was stoned to death. With the so-called brown house, Cobb’s immigration detention centre, just around the corner, the locals are eager to point the finger at refugees from countries where stoning is still common practice.

DS Manolis is sent from the city to Cobb, where he was born and raised, to help the local police force, such as it is, to find the culprit. The poor man has been there for all of 2 minutes and some so-and-so burns down his car. See what I mean about Cobb not being the place to be?

Manolis is a brilliant character, though. Anyone who shares their crackers with a possum and prevents someone from driving down a kangaroo, is a good person in my book, I don’t care how many crops said kangaroo might have destroyed. He’s originally Greek and he has some lingering Greek habits, he’s a bit of an outlier himself, which I think really helps him understand the refugee issues. He feels very authentic, he’s very hands-on, wants to get the job done but keeps hitting his head against a brick wall every which way he turns. His frustration is palpable but he never loses his wry sense of humour. I just love it when a book makes me snort wholly unladylike.

Strictly speaking a police procedural, The Stoning is very different from your average murder investigation. Cobb is like the wild west, with Manolis as acting sheriff trying to figure everything out while keeping everyone in line, including the actual sheriff. I adore small town settings with the characters veering from slightly off to completely bonkers, and the author did an amazing job with Cobb. The Stoning has a brilliant small town vibe that I’m sure fans of Chris Whitaker will lap up.

The refugee issues are a vital story element, and one that captured and kept my attention throughout, to some extent because it was completely new territory for me. It made me realise that I must have subconsciously considered Oceania so remote that it would not have any refugees, let alone that it would need halfway houses where refugees are detained until they either get permission to stay or are thrown out.

The Stoning also touches upon the Aboriginals and how they have been mistreated throughout history and that there is still racism towards them today. Again, something I had never considered. I’ve heard and read about the struggle of native Americans but I never realised that a native people on the other side of the world had gone through and are going through the same thing.

Last year, Gabriel Bergmoser introduced me to outback horror, now The Stoning has given me a taste of outback noir, and I have to say the Australian outback makes for a perfect setting! I thoroughly enjoyed my time with The Stoning, it’s both entertaining and thought-provoking, it’s extremely atmospheric throughout, and I can’t wait to be reunited with DS Manolis. Recommended.

The Stoning is out now in digital and audio formats and in hardcover.

Massive thanks to MacLehose Press and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

A beautifully written book,the wide expanses of Australia and the small towns turning slowly to dust ,the descriptions evoke vivid imaginings of outback Australia..
A murder,a copper,a teacher,a detention centre and the secrets in there.
Heat,dust,small town people,wildlife and the foreigners all converge on one place,can the copper discover the murderer and bring them to justice?
Absolutely loved this book!

Timely, dark and a proper page turner. The vivid descriptions really put the reader in the heart of the action and characters.

The author tackles the subject of immigration through a lively crime novel. Highly recommended.