[The Sinful Stones] has the great virtue of being different, just like Peter Dickinson's two earlier stories featuring Inspector Pibble of New Scotland Yard. And that's rare with a character in a series. In each adventure Pibble's persona grows in the round so that by the opening scenes of his current case the middle-aged cop is engaged in retracing time lost…. The story is laced with mystery and a kind of nostalgia for the Edwardian days which Pibble must re-live to make the present bearable. (p. 15)