THE DRY by Jane Harper (Aaron Falk, #1)
Abacus: 14/07/2017
Little Reader’s Rating: 3/5
How short was the road from that decisions to this moment? The question ached like a bruise. – Jane Harper, THE DRY
Synopsis: A small town hides big secrets in this atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.
In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.
Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.
But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke’s death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds in bleed into new ones. – Goodreads
My thoughts: I was excited to say the least about reading THE DRY this year, I was hearing so many good things about the Aaron Falk series as well as about Jane Harper as a writer.
THE DRY is a great debut novel and I agree with most people that Jane Harper’s writing is clever and addictive. I found the book easy to read and it started out very fast paced. Unfortunately for me the story began to slow down after about 250 pages. The story itself did pick back up again towards the end and the characters never faulted, they all had strong personalities but then the conclusion happened and I found myself feeling disappointed.
Death rarely changes how we feel about someone. Heightens it, more often than not. – Jane Harper, THE DRY
THE DRY is a typical mystery thriller where the reader is left guessing ‘who done it’ until the very end. I was guessing throughout the whole story and I never guessed who the killer was, although I am happy that it was never made easy for the reader to guess the ending, I did end up feeling let down. When the killer was revealed I thought it felt anti-climatic. Throughout the full book there’s build up, there’s secrets from Falk’s childhood, it’s very tense and I felt the conclusion didn’t follow suit, it ended up actually being somewhat disconnected to all of the build up.
As I’ve said though, you cannot fault Jane Harper’s writing, I still wanted to read the book to the very end and I’m looking forward to reading the next in the series, FORCE OF NATURE.
As always, thank you for reading.
Sarah x
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