A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a … father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.
Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there s more to Luke s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.
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Jane Harper is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. She builds suspense leaving intricate clues expertly placed along the way. I admire when an author can pull me into unfamiliar surroundings and make me feel a part of the setting. Aaron Falk appears in both “The Dry” and “Force of Nature.” I read them out of order and enjoyed each, but to really appreciate that character, I’d recommend reading “The Dry” first and then “Force of Nature.”
A small town with secrets is one of the oldest setups in crime fiction (and fiction generally). So is the protagonist (here, a detective) who reluctantly returns to that town of buried secrets and hidden demons. Jane Harper re-invents the genre with this murder mystery (and so much more) set in a forlorn Australian town stuck in a drought. Tightly plotted, cleverly layered, strong characters. I highly recommend!
I thought The Dry was an excellent crime novel. It’s set in a drought-stricken Australian farming community, where the unbearable heat and the constant threat of a devastating fire are practically their own characters in the book. The mystery itself was intriguing, and the characters were well-written, but the grim, parched setting is what I keep thinking about months after finishing the book.
Compelling page-turner. I wish I had written this book.
I really enjoyed this book, which belies the adage that you can’t go home again. You can, but if most residents of your small Australian town suspect you of a long-ago murder, it won’t be a very pleasant homecoming. Aaron Falk returns to the drought-devastated Kiewarra to attend a funeral that is even more heart-wrenching than most. His childhood best friend Luke has apparently killed his young son, his wife, and then himself, leaving only his infant daughter alive.
Aaron, now a federal agent in Melbourne, intends to return there right after the funeral. But when Luke’s father asks him to at least consider that his son didn’t commit the horrific crime, Aaron hesitates. Luke’s parents filled an emotional gap for him, when he was a lonely boy without a mother and with a father who had trouble expressing himself. He owes them. And he owes Luke, too, for an entirely different reason. Then Raco, the local cop, lets Aaron know he has doubts about the case against Luke. When he invites Aaron to help him investigate, he agrees.,
From there, author Jane Harper treats readers to smart twists, leads that dry up like the dusty landscape of the story, a plausible group of alternative suspects, and finally an ending that is a stunning surprise. The writing is lovely and the sense of place is beautifully evoked. This book will keep you up late, but it will be well worth it.
A present day family tragedy, a twenty-year-old unsolved death and an environment that can go up in flames with one spark all ramp up the tension, anger, suspicion, danger and suspense in Jane Harper’s debut novel THE DRY.
Twenty years ago Aaron Falk and his father were run out of their home and off their farm in Kiewarra, a small farming community in Australia. Ellie Deacon was found drowned and even though it was ruled a suicide, Aaron was rumored to be involved in her death. His best friend Luke Hadler gave him an alibi, but his name was found on a note in the dead girl’s room. Aaron never wants to return to the community.
A call from Luke’s father brings Aaron, who is now a Federal Police investigator in Melbourne, back to Kiewarra for the funeral of Luke, his wife and small son. Everyone believes the pressures of the drought made Luke snap and kill his family before killing himself, but Luke’s parents just can’t believe it and ask Aaron to look into it for them. The local policeman, Sergeant Raco is new to the area and he is having some doubts with the ruling of murder-suicide himself. Aaron and Raco start to look more closely at the case and start to uncover buried secrets and lies.
Many in the community still believe Aaron lied about is alibi and the same forces that chased him before are back to pressure him into leaving again. He is harassed constantly again, which leaves him looking at the same foes as before and it could be clouding his judgement and perspective on the current case. Are the two, past and present cases connected or is it just coincidence? Aaron and Raco work together to find the truth before the town ignites.
This book was so well written, I find it extremely hard to believe it is a debut book. Ms. Harper gives the reader not one, but two intriguing mysteries that intertwine throughout the book with well-placed flashbacks that never interrupt the story’s narrative. All of the characters are complex and fully fleshed. The pressures of a farming community on the edge due to an extended drought makes the environment as important as any character. This book is a must read for lovers of mystery/suspense books!
Well deserved praise for this novel of a federal agent who is forced to go back to his home town in the Australian outback when his childhood friend is murdered. Secrets and lies get exposed during the worst drought in half a century.
What a wonderful debut mystery. Harper did a superb job weaving together the characters’ histories and the book’s current world. I enjoyed the intrigue, the way the author planted twists and turns that unraveled later in the book. I’m looking forward to book 2 in the series. Well done!
Oh Miss Harper, what have you done? You’ve set the bar so high that finding books I can dive into is a huge mission.
Fortunately, she’s written more.
I was on holiday in the states with my sister, waiting at an airport and needed something to read. A glance across the shelves told me everything looked same-old until I came across The Dry. From the second I opened the first page, my sister had lost me to outback Australia and a murder you cannot turn away from.
So, there I am, supposedly viewing the US scenery and enjoying my trip while secretly whipping out this book and taking in a few more pages.
If you like your books beautifully written and compulsively addictive, grab this one. You won’t be disappointed.
The Dry is a great beginning to what is sure to be a great series. It has all the aspects of a crime/thriller book. I love how the realness of Aaron Falk. He doesn’t want to be in his hometown and we see how deep the hatred is for everyone. Though there are a few times that the story feels like it jumps between present and past, it all brings to light the truth. We get a lot of backstory about Falk in this book, but it’s all relevant and makes you want to know even more about him. I’ve already read book 2, Force of Nature, and I’m excited to see what happens to Falk in the rest of the series.
If you crave a mystery set in the Australian Outback, this is the book for you. Federal agent Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for the funeral of a friend, and soon realizes that there’s something suspicious about the death. But how does he find the truth when he carries a terrible secret himself? As the events unfold, the environment becomes its own antagonist: a drought has turned the town into a tinderbox.
Fantastic characters and a fantastic mystery. This is an easy read that you can finish in a few days.
Set in a remote, drought-stricken part of Australia, THE DRY is a gripping crime novel that kept me enthralled during a long flight from Edinburgh to Boston. The setting itself is almost a character. Well done!
Harper builds a harrowing world based on memories sprinkled throughout the novel. A gripping read that will have you racing to the end, only to have the mystery wrapped up in a completely different way than you expect.
An atmospheric slow-burn whodunit, the real strength of the story comes in the descriptions of the drought. Setting the plot against something so dramatic was a clever call and really added to the intrigue. Definitely an entertaining read for my first of 2021.
You’ll get lost in the outback with the constant twist and turns of this story. Great characters who made you feel for them all the way to the end. Read it!
The Dry explores the passions and hidden secrets of a remote Australian community ripped apart by sudden, violent death. A detective, long estranged from the village, returns to unearth the truth behind the heinous triple murder and the tragic drowning in the past that sent him and his father fleeing the area when he was a teen. It is a complex tale of human frailty and the depths one will sink to in self-preservation.
Wow. This is one of those books that has everything: fantastic, complex characters, an unpredictable plot, a childhood mystery gone cold that ties into secrets being held hostage in the present, hostile nature, and an elusive bad guy. PLUS a twist at the end that literally takes your breath away. It’s especially interesting considering the Australian bush fire disaster happening presently.
The Australian background context is the primary thing I liked as I read The Dry by Jane Harper. Not knowing much about Australia, Harper made me aware throughout the novel I was in a large, sparsely inhabited continent with rules and laws very close to the ground and pragmatic. When all the pretty disguises of civilized of life in the big city are stripped away, justice is expressed differently. Jane Harper did not tell me this in the novel; the author subtly showed the differences through the eyes of characters.
Aaron Falk had returned home for a funeral determined to spend the minimum amount of time possible. Eighteen hours sounded about right. Luke Hadler, Karen, and Billy were dead. Luke had been Falk’s friend since early youth, although he had never really known Luke’s wife Karen or son Billy. Luke was the reason Falk had left town and never returned. Luke and Falk shared a secret, one that was safe now. The most secure secrets are known to only one person.
Aaron Falk was not visiting in any official capacity. What would an investigator from a federal financial unit be able to do? Add that to the fact that no one in the town wanted this or the prior murder of Ellie Deacon investigated carefully. Most people wanted the earlier mystery left alone and closed. Days before the funeral, Falk had received a letter from Luke’s father, Gary. The note was short, but blunt, as the author directed Falk to be at the funeral. Additional information was that Gary claimed knowledge from the past. “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral.” (p.13).
It was accepted in Kiewarra that Ellie Deacon had committed suicide twenty years earlier, but it was accepted reluctantly. There had been stones in her pockets that held her down in the river. She had been moody. There were relationship frictions between Luke, Aaron Falk and Ellie. At the time it was determined that Ellie had died, Aaron and Luke had alibied each other, saying they were together fishing. But it was a small town, and some residents knew the two boys had lied. If some knew, there was at least widespread suspicion that Ellie had been killed and either Luke or Aaron had done it. Because the evidence was so lacking, Aaron’s father was suspect for a time. Aaron and his father had abandoned Kiewarra soon after the murder due to harassment. Now Aaron was returning twenty years later. Residents of Kiewarra still had their suspicions about Aaron, but Luke was now dead.
Mal Deacon, the father of dead daughter Ellie, might be excused for his erratic actions and hostile social actions. An excess of alcohol daily, a dead daughter, and advanced age combined to make him a town elder no one wanted to consult. His nephew Grant had a decidedly hostile and unpleasant public personality, but that may have been because he had devoted his life to caring for Mal. Very altruistic. And someone had to inherit the ranch, soon.
This story has lots of characters and one unforgivable trope that I am willing to overlook because the 336-page novel, as more than 86% of 2027 reviewers noted, has a rating of either four or five Amazon stars. I’ll go with five because I liked the surprise ending a lot. It had more than one element to it and worked well into the story. The trope I didn’t like was the mandatory appearance of a gay couple. IMHO, it was simply not necessary and gratuitous. The inclusion did have a minimum of development, more than I am used to seeing, so I was willing to give it a pass and keep the five-star rating for this outstanding story.
The Dry is not available on Kindle Unlimited. It sells on Amazon for USD 9.99. I think the price is high, so I read it with my Scribd subscription. The five stars are an Amazon rating, and because this is not a verified purchase, I did not post this review on Amazon.
I went into this book with scepticism, thinking it’d be too dry (see what I did there) and even a bit boring. It is a book club novel, so I really didn’t choose it. But let me tell you, Jane Harper blew me away! So much so, I went and got the sequel to this.
When Aaron Falk returns to his hometown to attend the funeral of his childhood friend, Luke, he plans to make a retreat back to his life as a federal agent, as quickly as possible. But Luke’s grieving parents ask for his help looking into Luke’s financial affairs in hope that he can find answers as to why he’d go and kill his wife and his son, then turning the gun on himself.
Soon after, Aaron is partnered with a local investigator in a search for clues that could shed light on the events leading up to the murders and Luke’s suicide. In the process, the two uncover shocking evidence that will change everything they thought they knew.
From the description of the harsh landscape:
“It was terrifying. It was a flash of hell. The land was drier now than it had been then. This would be no slow burn.”
To the harsh realities of coping with death:
“No-one tells you this is how it’s going to be, do they? Oh yes, they’re all so sorry for your loss, all so keen to pop round and get the gossip when it happens, but no-one mentions having to go through your dead son’s drawers and return their library books, do they? No-one tells you how to cope with that.”
Harper’s dazzling and gripping writing left me wanting to keep reading till the very end to find out what really happened to Luke and his family. Even her decision to slowly unravel certain details of the mystery, which sometimes made me question who really did murder the family was what made this a truly great “whodunnit” novel.
If there was one aspect that brought my review down it would be the graphic details of how Luke’s little boy was murdered. I only write this because it took me by surprise and I had a hard time reading it, so it is a forewarning to anyone interested in reading this.
Harper does an excellent job in brining the local town, Kiwarra, alive, and the desperate character that live there. It is a dark and intense community where people hold on to grudges and never forget the past. The drought scares the people and as the heat rises, so does the speculations and anger towards other character’s pasts.
This is a fantastically well written story with a fascinating narrative. The character development is brilliantly done. The tension and suspense kept me enraptured. Stay tuned for Jane Harper’s sequel review, Force of Nature.
Read more of my review here: https://bit.ly/2PY3fG7
A rural thriller worth the barbed wire you’ll cop. It’s inevitable to go unscathed, so prepare for some puncture wounds, because you will remember this book.