Missing Pieces

Cass Diamond #2

by Caroline de Costa

Book Two of the Cass Diamond crime series.

Weaving together a story of race, ethnicity, environmental politics and intrigue, Caroline de Costa sets her heroine in the lush rainforest, the sparkling seas and the solitary inland country of North Queensland that she knows so well. The story twists and turns, leaving the reader guessing, then guessing again…

Genres: Crime

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2018

About the author

Caroline is professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at James Cook University College of Medicine. 'Double Madness', featuring Detective Cass Diamond and set in Cairns, is published by Margaret River Press in mid 2015 and is her first crime novel.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second in the Cass Diamond series MISSING PIECES is set in far North Queensland, with Cass Diamond investigating connected cold case disappearances. In 1992, toddler Yasmin Munoz went missing from a picnic spot near Cairns. In 2012 local businessman and former mayor Andrew Todd dies, leaving directions in his will to search for the missing child, by now a young woman if she's still alive. Yasmin is the daughter of Todd and a local mixed race woman, who has since died. Once Diamond starts digging around she discovers there's another mysterious disappearance in the Todd family - the fiancée of Todd's son vanished on the night of their engagement party, and no trace of her has ever been found either.

Setting something like this in a small community has provided de Costa with a real opportunity for a closed room styled mystery, enhanced by the interwoven thread lines in a single family. As is always the way with these sorts of disappearances, the rumour mill in small towns provides heaps of possible scenarios, and much finger pointing - from the implications of poor mothering, question marks over the girl's father, the weird coincidence of the missing fiancée and a heap of possible motives. The official line on Yasmin's disappearance was that she was washed away when sudden rain flooded the picnic ground she was playing in, but the complication has always been that her mother left her supposedly supervised by an unknown person for a while, whilst helping with an injured boy. The lack of a body has never helped that conclusion, although it's Cairns, Queensland and there are always crocodiles to blame. Either way, Diamond finds herself digging around in both disappearances when the terms of Todd's will become well known and higher-ups in the Police get a bit nervous about the PR implications.

An interesting idea for a cold case investigation then, unfortunately not best served by the structure of the novel overall. The author here has a lot of worthwhile stuff to say about stereotypes of Indigenous Australians, on environmental issues, heavy-handed policing and a bunch of other social issues. The problem is that many chapters in the novel come across as mini-lectures on individual subjects, or are so heavily infested with foreshadowing that it's difficult to stay with it too frequently. There's also too many times when the side-alleys of lecture and points to be made simply overwhelm advancement of the plot and it's hard to come away from MISSING PIECES without wondering if there was a lot more novel here than actual story.

There's plenty of potential in Cass Diamond as a central character, so having really liked this idea of the intersecting cold cases as a plot device, here's hoping the third outing in this series achieves a better balance.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...

[Moraig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Missing Pieces in the second novel in the Cass Diamond series – Cass is a feisty, shrewd Indigenous cop with a black belt in Taekwondo. She often works ‘off the reservation’, piecing together seemingly unrelated information but also placing herself in danger. In the acknowledgements to Missing Pieces de Costa acknowledges ‘the many smart, beautiful kind and hardworking Aboriginal women I have had the pleasure and privilege of working with, teaching, and friendship with over the past thirty-eight years.’ It was fun spending time inside Cass’s head. I get the feeling she’s an amalgam of those women de Costa met through her obstetrics and gynaecology practice. I particularly warmed to de Costa’s non-judgmental attitude to her characters’ lives. She reveals their stories in detail – warts and all – but there’s a gracious, underlying understanding of their struggles and difficulties.

Also sprinkled throughout the novel are Cass’s views on what it’s like to be a single mother and the politics of race. Environmental issues occasionally crop up throughout novel – the damage done by large-scale mining, loss of habitat and bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef (a not so veiled dig at Adani methinks). There are a few times when de Costa could have pulled back a little, however, these detours into social issues do not detract from the underlying mystery: is Yasmin Munoz alive. The cold case sub-plot of a missing woman Chloe Campion grabbed my interest and kept me wondering how the mysteries would tie in together. There are many interesting twists and turns in the story but, to me, occasionally de Costa reveals a little too much too early. But overall Missing Pieces is an engaging and intelligent book, sprinkled with authentic medical details that gives that extra lick of credibility to the story.

Missing Pieces reveals Cairns in a riot of tropical heat, colour and vegetation – de Costa paints the landscape with an expert brush – the lush vegetation, brilliant flowers, the steamy heat, palm-ringed beaches, or the dry, water-parched Atherton Tableland.

I would certainly recommend Missing Pieces for those with a social conscience and who also enjoy a police procedural in a truly delightful setting. 3 to 3.5 stars for me.

The third book in the series Blood Sisters is due out in April.

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great atmosphere of Australia and real sense of what it is to be an Indigenous Australian. However, the book was too long for the strength of the plot and for the amount of foreshadowing. That said, reasonably good mystery, and I'll read more of her books in future. Really, really like the protagonist, Cass, a police detective located in Cairns, northern Queensland.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, well written and interesting.

[Margaret Fullarton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first but a good solid read

[Tomiko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great story plot