The Dry
Jane Harper
Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9781743548059
Description:
Luke Hadler turns a gun on his wife and child, then himself. The farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily. If one of their own broke under the strain, well…
When Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk returns to Kiewarra for the funerals, he is loath to confront the people who rejected him twenty years earlier. But when his investigative skills are called on, the facts of the Hadler case start to make him doubt this murder-suicide charge.
And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, old wounds start bleeding into fresh ones. For Falk and his childhood friend Luke shared a secret… A secret Falk thought long-buried… A secret which Luke’s death starts to bring to the surface…
My View:
If you are a lover of crime fiction then you should read this book. If you are a lover of Australian crime fiction you must read this book!
This book is atmospheric, brooding with the tension of the lies, suspicion, bullying and threats that are whispered and shared amongst the inhabitants of this small community. There is a constant doubt regarding the good character of Aaron Falk that keeps the atmosphere intense – reliable or unreliable…the reader is never quite sure about this narrator, new information revealed tips this see saw precariously from side to side.
Read this book quickly – before the movie of the book is made and screened. The narrative is so rich and visual I can fully understand why this story has already been optioned by a major movie production company. The directors will have plenty to work with – small town attitudes and characters (am sure we have all met or known some of the types of people portrayed here), a community on edge – drought and financial difficulties strain relationships, a local murder pushes people closer to the edge of an abyss they cannot return from. Add a few plot twists and turns and an empathetic yet slightly unreliable protagonist and have a cracker of a read and the basis for an excellent film.
This book is already high on my list of best reads of 2016.
This really does sound excellent, Carol! And I love the strong sense of location in it. I must admit, too, that I do like those past/present connections.
Margot this is another to go straight to my best of 2016 reads! You know when you start reading a book and immediately you can tell it is going to be great?? When it is well written and the writing flows as does the story? This is one of those.
This sounds like an interesting one, Carol. Especially with the link between the investigator and ‘murderer’. And unreliability of it. Highly tempted.
It is an excellent read Rebecca and the film rights have already been snapped up it is making quite an impact and only just released
Reserved from my library as soon as I read your review on Goodreads! Hopefully it’s one my library will buy or else I’ll have a three month wait….sigh
Let’s hope demand will see them get it in for you soon
I’ve got this review scheduled for Monday I think it is. You know I didn’t love it as much as you but enjoyed it nonetheless.
Such is individual taste 🙂 But I think we also respond to a read relative to what we have recently read…but I didnt read this I watched this in my mind! I can even picture a couple of the cast…
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