Helpful Score: 5
In Jane Harper's The Dry, readers are given two mysteries to solve: who killed Aaron's friend Ellie twenty years ago, and who killed Luke and his family now. In this debut that certainly doesn't read like a first book, both mysteries held my interest throughout. On multiple occasions I thought I knew what the solutions were going to be, but I was always wrong. Harper doesn't take the obvious way out when it comes to solving crime.
The setting was claustrophobic: a small town filled with people who take everything at face value and never look for a deeper meaning (let alone the truth). A town that just might be a little crazed from the never-ending drought, dust, and heat. With this backdrop, Aaron Falk shows himself to be an extremely stubborn man who sticks to his investigation even when the townspeople show him repeatedly that he's not wanted. The local detective, Sergeant Raco, is new to the area, so he hasn't formed any strong attachments yet to Kiewarra or the people living there, but he does have a strong attachment to the truth, and this makes him an excellent partner for Falk.
Jane Harper combines strong characterizations, a vivid setting, and a compelling mystery with a fast-moving pace that relentlessly uncovers many of Kiewarra's nasty little secrets. I hear that Aaron Falk will be making another appearance, and that's just the type of news I like.
The setting was claustrophobic: a small town filled with people who take everything at face value and never look for a deeper meaning (let alone the truth). A town that just might be a little crazed from the never-ending drought, dust, and heat. With this backdrop, Aaron Falk shows himself to be an extremely stubborn man who sticks to his investigation even when the townspeople show him repeatedly that he's not wanted. The local detective, Sergeant Raco, is new to the area, so he hasn't formed any strong attachments yet to Kiewarra or the people living there, but he does have a strong attachment to the truth, and this makes him an excellent partner for Falk.
Jane Harper combines strong characterizations, a vivid setting, and a compelling mystery with a fast-moving pace that relentlessly uncovers many of Kiewarra's nasty little secrets. I hear that Aaron Falk will be making another appearance, and that's just the type of news I like.
Helpful Score: 4
Wow! This is a fantastic read if you are a mystery lover (though tragic and heart wrenching, too). If real life and a need for sleep had not interfered, I would have just read this straight through. I did not want to put it down and could not wait to pick it up again. There are two mysteries (and other secrets) playing out in this sad, desperate little town-one in the present and one 20 years in the past. No, you won't figure it all out. I love a book that surprises me and a mystery that lives up to being a mystery. I will be looking for the next book I can read by this author as fast as I can!
Helpful Score: 3
This book was set in rural Australia during a drought. Jane Harper has created a novel with great sense of place as I could actually feel the heat and dust in my throat while reading The Dry. The characters were believable and I especially loved the interaction between Falk and Raco, the two police investigators. The excellent plot moved very well with great use of flashbacks for telling the back story from 20 years ago. There were many twists and turns that kept me changing my mind about who the murderer could be. This is a fabulous debut from Jane Harper and I hope to read more books by her in the future. I would highly recommend this book for those who enjoy complex murder mysteries.
Unbelievably well-written for a first novel. Kept me up all night, and when I finished I wished I could immediately order the author's next book. Great sense of setting in a drought-stricken rural area in Australia.
This is one of the best mysteries I have read for quite some time. Well-written and atmospheric, with plenty of twists and red herrings. A sequel is coming soon, and though it is hard to imagine a follow up not being a letdown after this stunning debut, Jane Harper seems to have the imagination and writing chop to make it possible.
Federal Agent Aaron Falk returns to his hometown to attend a funeral for his childhood friend Luke, who allegedly killed his wife, son and himself. He hasn't been back for 20 years and no one is happy to see him return. Seems he and his dad left town, suspected of killing one of his friends but it was never proven.
The story progresses as he meets a cop and they investigate the killings, and find things are not always what they seem.
This is a very good mystery, actually two of them, about four good friends with hidden secrets until they get out of hand.
Lots of twists in the story, where the past and present collide, making this book hard to put down. Looking forward to book 2 in this new series.
The story progresses as he meets a cop and they investigate the killings, and find things are not always what they seem.
This is a very good mystery, actually two of them, about four good friends with hidden secrets until they get out of hand.
Lots of twists in the story, where the past and present collide, making this book hard to put down. Looking forward to book 2 in this new series.
It's difficult for me to put into words, why I liked this mystery. I did enjoy the twists that kept me guessing right up to the end. And I liked the 'Hard Crime' grit, that reminded me of some of the classic crime novels of the 60s and 70s. Though this tragedy took place in the Australian bush, it could have, just as easily occurred in the southwest U.S., Mexico, or even the Canadian northwest territory. I will definitely recommend it to my book club mates.
4.5 stars. An excellent first novel for Jane Harper. A lot of twists and turns and red herrings with everything tied up at the end. No loose strings hanging, no questions unanswered. I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series.
A clear, engaging mystery, with lots of local color. One I would have cheerfully read in one sitting. Almost did but, y'know ... people ... real life ... what can you do?
SECOND THOUGHTS, having reread this for a book group.
Harper is a keeper, that's for sure. I've now read three of her novels, and re-read one, and I'd say that her grade overall is a very, very solid B+ -- two A-, and one very readable B-. I felt the same headlong rush to read on, and turn the pages, and figure out what the heck happened as I did the first time. Felt the same sense of place, and given the terrible news from Australia in recent weeks, the same dreadful sense of good, hard-working people living on the edge of a catastrophe -- the murder of the Hadler family seems like an apt metaphor for what can happen in tiny increments, or one terrible rush of fire, to any family living in an Outback town like Kiewarra.
If I have dropped my rating down one star, from the breathless 5-* I gave it on first reading, it's because I think some of the cracks show. The locals are drawn as just a little too sheep-like, too willing to accept first, the guilt of Aaron Falk and his father in the death of Ellie Deacon, on the flimsiest evidence, and then to accept the deaths of the Hadlers as murder-suicide when anyone could see the gaping holes in the scenario. The careful drip feed of information from the past (recent and more distant past) in italicized flashbacks begins to feel too carefully edited. The solution to the secondary mystery -- who killed Ellie Deacon, or did she commit suicide? -- is solved by the most lucky of lucky breaks.
BUT -- well-written, engaging, and timely. I'll be first in the queue when Jane Harper's next book comes out ...
SECOND THOUGHTS, having reread this for a book group.
Harper is a keeper, that's for sure. I've now read three of her novels, and re-read one, and I'd say that her grade overall is a very, very solid B+ -- two A-, and one very readable B-. I felt the same headlong rush to read on, and turn the pages, and figure out what the heck happened as I did the first time. Felt the same sense of place, and given the terrible news from Australia in recent weeks, the same dreadful sense of good, hard-working people living on the edge of a catastrophe -- the murder of the Hadler family seems like an apt metaphor for what can happen in tiny increments, or one terrible rush of fire, to any family living in an Outback town like Kiewarra.
If I have dropped my rating down one star, from the breathless 5-* I gave it on first reading, it's because I think some of the cracks show. The locals are drawn as just a little too sheep-like, too willing to accept first, the guilt of Aaron Falk and his father in the death of Ellie Deacon, on the flimsiest evidence, and then to accept the deaths of the Hadlers as murder-suicide when anyone could see the gaping holes in the scenario. The careful drip feed of information from the past (recent and more distant past) in italicized flashbacks begins to feel too carefully edited. The solution to the secondary mystery -- who killed Ellie Deacon, or did she commit suicide? -- is solved by the most lucky of lucky breaks.
BUT -- well-written, engaging, and timely. I'll be first in the queue when Jane Harper's next book comes out ...
I really got drawn into this very atmospheric thriller set in a small town in Southern Australia during a catastrophic drought. Aaron Falk is called back to his boyhood town when his childhood friend, Luke, apparently went berserk and killed his wife, young son, and himself using a shotgun. Luke's parents feel that something is not right so they want Falk to investigate the financial aspects of Luke's life hoping to find something that will lead to some other explanation. Falk is now a policeman in Melbourne who works with financial crimes so he may be able to find something. But there is also a death of a young girl, Ellie, twenty years earlier that is also being held over Falk's head by the towns people who think Falk had a hand in her death. So did Luke actually commit the brutal crime against his family? If not, then who did? And is Ellie's death twenty years earlier somehow related to this current crime?
This was really an engrossing and compelling novel and it had me hooked from page 1. There were lots of twists and red herrings thrown into the tale and it kept me guessing right up till the end. Overall, a very good thriller that I would recommend.
This was really an engrossing and compelling novel and it had me hooked from page 1. There were lots of twists and red herrings thrown into the tale and it kept me guessing right up till the end. Overall, a very good thriller that I would recommend.
