336 pages, Flatiron Books, ISBN-13: 978-1250105608
In Jane Harper’s The Dry, Aaron Falk, Australian Federal Police agent, returns to the struggling farming community (and hometown) of Kiewarra for the funeral of his childhood best friend, Luke Hadler, and his family. Severe drought has put the town under extreme pressure and the community is shocked (but not surprised) when the Hadler family is found dead in their farmhouse in an apparent murder-suicide perpetrated by Luke. While Falk is loath to confront the townspeople who drove him away twenty years earlier, the circumstances around the deaths of the Hadlers compels him to dig deeper into the events leading up to the tragedy – and to confront the long-hidden secrets of his own troublesome past in this water-forsaken town.
The Dry is a first-rate page-turner that depicts its setting – the parched, small-town farming communities outside of the landmark Australian cities – in intimate (not to say depressing) detail. The characters are all fleshed out and believable, while the pace is that of a long-distance runner: steady and assured, not in a rush to get to the destination but, rather, determined to move along at its own pace and arrive, triumphant. And as for the ending…well, let me just say that I like my mysteries to be mysterious, and the unexpected twist as the killer is at last revealed and the mystery is solved left me satisfied that these 336 pages weren’t a waste of my time (and made me wonder why I didn’t figure it out on my own. Damnit).
So, yeah, The Dry is a first-class mystery that will leave you guessing until The Big Reveal; so glad I found and assigned it for the Mysteries & Munchies book club (he said in all modesty).
No comments:
Post a Comment