Review: The Dry by Jane Harper (audio)

Title:The Dry

Author:Jane Harper

Series:Aaron Falk, #1

Narrator:Stephen Shanahan

Published:January 2017, Macmillan Audio

Length:9 hours 46 minutes

Source:Library

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 thoughts:I am completely blown away by the fact that this is a debut novel! I had been hearing a lot about this book as soon as it was released, but didn’t have time to pick it up until now. And to know that this is going to be a series — how happy am I!?! You know how I love my series and when I find one that I love from the start…and get into when it starts and not get into late in the game – it’s a home run!

There are so many good things going for this book…it’s hard to know where to start. First, there’s the setting. The small farming town of Kiewarra that is in the middle of a draught and is now dealing with the murder of three of their own…really set the scene – talk about atmospheric! Think of a pressure cooker trying to let off steam…that’s what this book is like. It’s tightly woven and intricately plotted, getting hold of you and not letting go until you reach the end!

The characters are all richly developed and you just want to find out all there is about them. There are secrets to uncover and that is the driving force behind what is going on. The plot moves between the past and present and you get more and more intrigued trying to figure out how they are connected. 

I really liked Detective Aaron Falk and am excited that this series is based on him. The twists and turns kept me guessing and engaged and while I did figure a few things out, I was still surprised at the end in the way everything played out. I will be eagerly awaiting the next book in this series.


Audio thoughts:This was a great book to listen to…and I thought Stephen Shanahan did a great job narrating it. It’s the first time I’ve listened to him narrate and I really hope he continues to narrate this series as I thought he did a great job with the voices and the pacing. His accent – to me what seemed an authentic Australian accent – was just perfect for this book!

Books in this series: 

1. The Dry
2. Force of Nature – due out 2/18 (in the US)