{"id":13163,"date":"2019-12-17T18:19:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T23:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13163"},"modified":"2019-12-17T18:19:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T23:19:24","slug":"sticks-and-stones-by-john-carson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13163","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Sticks and Stones,&#8217; by John Carson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51B1P%2BL93%2BL.jpg?w=474&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Another day, <\/strong>another British police procedural series. Not a bad one either, judging by this first book, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/STICKS-STONES-Scottish-Thriller-McNeil-ebook\/dp\/B07V62HV96\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sticks+and+stones+carson&amp;psr=EY17&amp;qid=1576623427&amp;s=cyber-monday&amp;sr=8-1&amp;tag=brandbooks-20\">Sticks and Stones<\/a><\/em>, by John Carson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Edinburgh DCI Harry McNeil is new to homicide, having\npreviously worked in the Scottish equivalent of Internal Affairs. With his\nsidekick, female DS Alex Maxwell, he\u2019s sent to a country estate to hunt for a\nbride who disappeared from the wedding reception. Odd duty, but the bride\u2019s\nfather, Broderick Gallagher, is a wealthy man with many important friends, so\nhe gets special favors. Harry and Alex figure the woman just got cold feet, so\nit\u2019ll be an easy weekend with some good food and drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until searchers discover a headless body, aflame in the\nwoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the bride\u2019s sister is kidnapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The whole conspiracy leads back to a long-ago\nmurder-suicide, and revenge nurtured for years, to be served up cold at the\nwedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Sticks and Stones <\/em>wasn\u2019t absolute top-flight crime fiction, but it was pretty good. The writing was lively, and the characters interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I did note a small problem with cop banter. A lot of cop\nbanter went on here. I like cop banter. The problem in this book \u2013 and I hope author\nCarson will fix this in future outings \u2013 is that the banter is all the same.\nThere are three main pairs of cops who banter back and forth, and their banter\nis almost indistinguishable. Distinct styles of banter are called for here,\nparticularly to distinguish male-female banter from male-male banter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just a suggestion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not a bad novel, though. Cautions for the stuff you\u2019d\nexpect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another day, another British police procedural series. Not a bad one either, judging by this first book, Sticks and Stones, by John Carson. Edinburgh DCI Harry McNeil is new to homicide, having previously worked in the Scottish equivalent of Internal Affairs. With his sidekick, female DS Alex Maxwell, he\u2019s sent to a country estate to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13163\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Sticks and Stones,&#8217; by John Carson<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[1177,1466,2682],"class_list":["post-13163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-harry-mcneil","tag-john-carson","tag-sticks-and-stones"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}