With his debut film “Stoning”, Peter Papathanasiou shows that he is one of Australia’s great contemporary crime writers.
Blood on the shopping cart
If objects of everyday use are misused for acts of violence, the most perfidious crimes usually occur. Anyone who thinks up oppressive situations in which something like this happens, in order to then implement it in a sophisticated way, shows great skill.
Peter Papathanasiou skilfully shocks right from the first pages of his outback noir “Stoning” with a hard-to-carry killing, during the preparation of which a shopping trolley is relieved of its actual purpose. Even a group of kangaroos turn away in confusion and there are no witnesses to the sadistic murder of the teacher Molly Abbott on a remote sports field in the small Australian town of Cobb.
He cast the first stone
Not an easy case for Detective Sergeant Giorgio “George” Manolis, who has only just returned to his childhood town after the death of his father. He hardly recognizes them: corrugated iron settlements and decay are spreading. Poverty, drugs and alcohol are leading to more and more social problems. In addition to the usual tensions between whites and Aborigines, the new refugee camp also brings social explosives. Molly Abbott took care of these immigrants – did that get her down?
Manolis must distinguish prejudice from mutual hatred. Lured onto the wrong track, he himself becomes the victim of an insidious attack. Until the circumstances of Molly’s death are surprisingly completely different…
stoning
crime novel
From d. English v. Sven Koch
368 pages, 17 euros
“Stoning” is the start of a noir series
With “Stoning”, the first volume of his new noir series, Papathanasiou shows that he is one of Australia’s well-known contemporary crime writers alongside Emma Viskic, Michael Robotham and Garry Disher. His multi-layered drawing of characters and the atmospherically coherent plot are at the same time a relentless analysis of society and a sophisticated story of suspense. In addition, Papathanasiou shows his flair for fine black humor: At the end, Manolis pushes a shopping trolley, which, as an everyday object, has long since lost its innocence due to the events of the past…
“A special kind of police novel, a dark, menacing novel with a great sense of place.” Emma Viskic
“In George Manolis they have a detective in the tradition of Chandler’s Marlowe, but just right for the time we’re in – the novel is brilliantly written.” Memmuir festival
