The Dry by Jane Harper #TheDry @janeharperautho @LittleBrownUK

The Dry by Jane Harper is now out in paper back and after being on the blog tour back in January I’m delighted to be sharing my review again. 

 

WHO REALLY KILLED THE HADLER FAMILY?

 

I just can’t understand how someone like him could do something like that.

Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn’t rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty.

Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. As questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, Falk is forced to confront the community that rejected him twenty years earlier. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret, one which Luke’s death threatens to unearth. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, secrets from his past and why he left home bubble to the surface as he questions the truth of his friend’s crime.

Published by ~ Little, Brown

To purchase The Dry click here. 

Its been a long time since Aaron Falk has been in his old home town Kiewarra, the town he grew up in and had to leave, the town that is under incredible strain from an ongoing drought, a town that has been hut by a devastating family murder and a town that holds many secrets. Coming home to attend the funerals of his best friend Luke, Luke’s wife and son, Aaron finds himself in a situation he can’t turn his back on.

As soon as I saw the cover and read the description of this book I knew straight away it was going to be a cracker and I wasn’t wrong. Jane Harper has written an absolutely fantastic debut, it’s actually quite hard to believe this is a debut. From the prologue I was totally gripped and had shivers running down my spine.

Drawn in from page one I easily found myself in Kiewarra, everyone knows everyone, what they’re doing and what they’ve been up to and I instantly felt the tense atmosphere that surrounded Aaron on his return. Slowly, slowly through out the story we are given clues to a mystery that was never successfully solved and along with the recent deaths of the Hadler family this made for an intense read.  The author has cleverly woven both the stories together and the reader is taken back in snippets to the events as they unfold which I really enjoyed.

With well formed characters, a totally gripping storyline, red herrings and quite a few twists and turns to keep you on your toes, The Dry is an outstanding debut novel that totally blew my socks off. I can’t recommend The Dry highly enough and after hearing that the film rights have been sold to Reese Witherspoon’s production company I’m even more excited.

My rating 5/5

My thanks go to Grace Vincent at Little, Brown for my copy in exchange for my honest and voluntary review.

Jane Harper has worked as a print journalist for 13 years both in Australia and the UK. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. Jane is originally from the UK and moved to Australia in 2008. The Dry is her first novel.

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