The Dry

I love that the endless drought in the small Australian town of Kiewarra is as much a villain as the human antagonist in Jane Harper’s debut novel. The oppressive heat, the flies, and the smothering dust harbor their own brand of desperation and evil.

The human characters seem to struggle vainly against the burden of their own secrets and the forces of nature around them. All of Jane Harper’s novels make me feel like a stranger in a strange land, but in a dramatic, enlightening way. The Dry is Harper's first, and the best at this, in my mind. 

Set in Australia, the story opens with a dead man lying in the desert heat. The quest to discover who he is, and what happened to him provide a most satisfying read, involving family feuds and community tensions. I can’t think of another book where I was so desperate to learn what had led to the man’s death—the back story, the reasons and the truth of the various family relationships. The central character is endearing and the slow realisations that dawn on the reader are handled with great skill. I have been to Northern and Western Australia a number of… show more.

After watching Australia burn up recently from a series of catastrophic wildfires, I’ve come to appreciate what drought means Down-under. In this mystery, Jane Harper sets the narrative against a background of dry tinder, making the reader feel both parched and anxious. The writing is sophisticated and evocative. I don’t have to travel to Australia to feel that I’ve been there and witnessed its menace and charm.

What draws me to The Dry is that it’s a classic small-town murder mystery but instead of rural America or a village in the UK, the action takes place in a drought-stricken, outback Australian setting. There is a recent brutal triple homicide, a decades-old secret, and an investigator with a deeply-troubled past. Harper gives her characters great depth, the writing is sharp and the mystery is solid. Best of all, even if you guess whodunnit, you’re unlikely to figure out why; it’s always satisfying to read crime with a good reveal! 

The murder of an old friend brings Federal Agent Aaron Falk back to Kiewarra, a drought-stricken town in Australia, and from that moment on I was immersed in the ruthless setting that provides the backdrop for this stunning mystery. The closed-minded community that calls Kiewarra home can’t help but be affected by the drought that plagues them, and I felt their misery and desperation – along with that of Falk himself – on every page.