The Dry – Jane Harper

 The book-packing journey reaches Australia and the remote community of Kiewarra.

Kiewarra has not seen rain for two years, but it has not seen Aaron Falk for longer than that, twenty years in fact, until he turns up for the funeral of his boyhood pal, Luke Hadler. Luke, wife Karen, and son Billy are all dead, shot, apparently in a murder - suicide tragedy with Luke the perpetrator. The big question is why?

Easier to answer is why Aaron Falk has been away for twenty years. He and his father were run out of town following the drowning of Ellie Deacon, a girl young Aaron was seeing at the time. He has been ‘allowed’ back for the day of the funeral to pay his respects. But when Luke’s parents ask Aaron to ‘look into things’, after all he is a police detective in Melbourne, he hangs around and starts making enquiries.

Kiewarra is a powder keg in more ways than one. It is bone dry; farms are parched, and people are fractious and worried for their livelihoods. Secrets, and favours owed, are concealed in a web of deceit and mistrust. Falk’s probing is unwelcome but throws up new possibilities in the Hadler case, even suggesting links back the suspicious death of Ellie Deacon.

Despite the wide horizons of the outback, the atmosphere is small-town claustrophobic. The plot is cunning as characters mislead and clues misguide Falk right to the end. Tension mounts and the powder keg threatens to blow.