The Dry - Hardcover

Jane Harper

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408708175 ISBN 13: 9781408708170

Publisher: Little, Brown, 2017

Synopsis

'One of the most stunning debuts I've ever read...Read it!' David Baldacci

'Packed with sneaky moves and teasing possibilities that keep the reader guessing...The Dry is a breathless page-turner' Janet Maslin, New York Times

THE SIMON MAYO RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB CHOICE
AUSTRALIA INDIE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017
AUSTRALIA INDIE DEBUT OF THE YEAR 2017

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.

About this title

Review

I devoured it in just over 24 hours...Spellbinding (Ian Rankin)

It is hard to believe that this accomplished piece of writing, which returns again and again to the savage beauty of the landscape, is Harper's first novel (Sunday Times, Crime Book of the Month January 2017)

Wonderfully atmospheric, The Dry is both a riveting murder mystery and a beautifully wrought picture of a rural community under extreme pressure (Mail on Sunday Thriller of the Week, January 2017)

Harper's debut novel is The Dry, a crime thriller making its way up The Sunday Times Bestsellers charts as steadily as the mercury rises each day in the stricken agricultural town of Kiewarra, in which it is set...It feels like an Ur-Australian novel, a whodunit that evokes the punishing landscape and searing aridity so convincingly, you expect a heat haze to shimmer above the page (Patricia Nichol Culture, Sunday Times)

A stunningly atmospheric read (Val McDermid, bestselling author of Out of Bounds)

An award-winner in its native Australia, in this first book from journalist Harper a local cop investigates the murder of a family in a small town enduring the worst drought in 100 years. This could be the start of an Antipodean wave that will overtake Scandi noir (Nick Curtis Evening Standard, The Most Talked About Books of the Summer)

This superb debut from a British-born, Australia-based journalist grips like a vice from the first paragraph to the last, atmospherically evoking the isolated town of Kiewarra, outside Melbourne, which has been rocked by a horrific murder/suicide...Told with heartbreaking precision and extraordinary emotional power, it reveals the prejudices, secrets and lies of small-town life against the background of emotions inflamed by heat (Daily Mail, Best Books for the Summer 2017)

The writing is fantastic, and the plot - where many mystery/thrillers fall short these days - was completely unpredictable in the best ways possible... Aaron Falk, returns to his hometown in Australia to mourn, and inevitably investigate, his best friend's apparent suicide. What comes next is a series of twists and turns that will keep you guessing all the way until the end. I repeatedly found myself shocked and pulled in by Harper's fast paced and engrossing writing. Truly a fantastic read and hopefully the first of many to come from Ms. Harper (An Amazon Best Book of January 2017, Amazon.com)

A sad, beautifully told tale of lives regretted (The Times)

'Jane Harper's fleet novel about a triple killing is packed with sneaky moves and teasing possibilities that keep the reader guessing...The Dry is a breathless page-turner...The dryness that gives the book its eerie title looms large in the novel's finale, when certain kinds of weapons become even more terrible than those used to butcher the Hadlers...The Dry has caught the attention of Reese Witherspoon, who has a solid track record for spotting novels with strong movie potential. (Want some evidence? Gone Girl.) But Ms Hadler has made her own major mark long before any film version comes along (Janet Maslin New York Times)

Book Description

IN A TOWN WITHOUT RAIN, SOME SECRETS ARE NEVER WASHED AWAY

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1408708175
• ISBN 13: 9781408708170
• Binding: Board book
• Number of pages: 70000