Jane Harper's The Dry: A Gripping Novel of Mystery and Suspense

Amazon Customer: Loved the quality writing, the story the characters...brilliant.

France on Nov 23, 2023

M Wise: Great book set in the Australian outback. Two brutal murders and a policeman who returns to his home town to uncover why. Unforgettable characters and many secrets unfold.

United Kingdom on Nov 23, 2023

Silke S.: Dies ist mein Lieblingsbuch der Autorin. Als halbe Australierin bin ich selbst mit dem Outback vertraut, jedoch natürlich nicht in dieser Intensität. Das Buch ist sehr atmosphärisch und die Charaktere gut gezeichnet. Das Ende habe ich nicht kommen sehen. Empfehlenswert!

Germany on Nov 11, 2023

OvermyerFam: I used to be an avid reader and have let life stress me out. I read this in about 2 days and it’s gotten me back to wanting to read again. I did watch the movie after….the book was better for sure.

United States on Oct 31, 2023

Janie U: I had bought this book ages ago after a recommendation in a newspaper list then it sat on my book shelf for a while. The novel was first published in 2016 and received positive reviews.
It is 401 pages split into 42 chapters. The story runs chronologically with plenty of memories and back story.
From the title it is clear that the book is going to make the drought a huge part of the story and the author incorporates this really cleverly.
The oppressive nature of the heat gives a claustrophobic atmosphere which is in direct contrast to the wide open feeling of the country setting. The scarcity of water adds an unexpected feeling of fear which, having given it some consideration, makes total sense as the lack of water is an actual life threatening situation.
Two policemen are set up as an unplanned team to investigate the deaths. They work well together and their discussions allow the reader to keep up to date with progress.
There is a slow pace that is completely appropriate to the setting of the story, with the occasional violent outbursts giving the impression of a pressure gradually building and steam being released. The difficulty for all involved is that the...

United Kingdom on Aug 30, 2023

lawyeraau: This is a wonderful debut novel, well-written and intriguing. It is a mystery that most certainly kept me turning the pages. It is actually two mysteries, one that happened twenty years ago and one that happens in the present. They both take place in the same rural Australian community, only in the present it is seemingly on its last legs due to long standing drought conditions. It is a tinderbox both literally and figuratively.

Twenty years ago, a teenage boy and his father abruptly left the community after it became untenable for them to stay. When a teenage girl drowned, her father and cousin, notorious bullies, had set the town against the boy and his father, blaming them for the girl’s death. Now, that boy is a federal police officer in Melbourne. When he learns that a close childhood friend, along with his son and wife, have all died in what appears to be a murder-suicide, he is prompted by his friend’s father to return to that community to attend the funeral. He does so reluctantly, only to find that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

While there, the local police asks him to assist in reviewing the case, as some things about this...

United States on Jun 08, 2023

H. Grove (errantdreams): A person who was helping me with my resume noticed that I write genre fiction reviews and recommended Jane Harper’s The Dry: A Novel to me. I’m so glad he did!

Aaron Falk is a Federal police officer in Australia, but not your typical fictional homicide cop–he’s the guy who follows the money trail. He has returned home to his childhood small town for the funeral of his old fried Luke, and Luke’s wife and toddler. Supposedly Luke killed his family (except for his baby girl) and then killed himself. Everyone blames the drought, which is ruining all of the farms, for driving him to despair. It doesn’t help that when Luke and Aaron were teenagers, their friend Ellie drowned, a lot of people thought it was Aaron’s doing, and Luke gave Aaron his alibi at the time. Luke’s father Gerry knows Luke lied about the alibi, and he uses this knowledge to force Aaron to come to town for the funeral. Gerry thinks there’s no way Luke could have killed his family, and wants Aaron to go through all of Luke’s financial records to look for evidence that someone else may have killed them due to debts owed. Unfortunately, Ellie’s father and cousin want to stir up the entire...

United States on Jun 14, 2021

Bonnye Reed Fry: My second reading, January 2021:
When I keep going back in my mind to a particular book, I like to recycle it in a couple of years and second guess myself. The Dry is a debut novel, the first of a series by Australian author Jane Harper, and the drought and repercussions of drought are very familiar to those of us who have generations in the High Plains Deserts of the U.S. I think though, rather than the familiarity of the weather's hold on our lives, this book touched my humanity in a way I don't often feel. Any of us raised in a small town in the west understand the instability of the weather. Many of us have lived long enough to see summers where our animals had to be sacrificed due to lack of food and water. We have seen the angst and anger that infuses some as we spiral down into a life in which we have no control. Jane Harper takes you there. My background focus was tied to the repercussions of the weather. In this reading, the town of Kiewarra is another major player, and the nuances of this tragic time were more obvious.

If you haven't read this series, you are missing a special experience. If you have, hit it again when you are feeling overwhelmed by life. A...

United States on Dec 09, 2018

OlgaNM: This is a bit of a peculiar situation. After reading great things about this novel and requesting the author’s second novel Force of Nature (you can check my review here) from NetGalley, I had to read it quickly to take part on a blog tour. When I looked at other reviews, there were so many comparisons to the first novel (although it can be read as a standalone) that I felt I should read the first novel to make my own mind up. That means I will be comparing the first novel to the second, rather than the other way around. Sorry. Why do things the easy way when one can complicate matters?
There is no doubt that Harper knows how to set a story and how to take full advantage of the landscape, atmosphere, and characteristics of the place and the people. She sets the story during a terrible drought in Australia, specifically in Kiewarra, and has the main protagonist (who is also the main character in Force, Aaron Falk, a police detective specializing on fraud and financial crimes) return to his place of birth, twenty years after having left in unfortunate circumstances. The story is also told in the third person, mostly from Falk’s point of view, although we also have fragments,...

United Kingdom on Jan 31, 2018