The Dry by Jane Harper

Author: Jane Harper
Publisher: Flatiron Books (Macmillan)
Date of publication: January 2017

Luke Hadler turns a gun on his wife and child, then himself. The farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily. If one of their own broke under the strain, well...

When Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk returns to Kiewarra for the funerals, he is loath to confront the people who rejected him twenty years earlier. But when his investigative skills are called on, the facts of the Hadler case start to make him doubt this murder-suicide charge.

And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, old wounds start bleeding into fresh ones. For Falk and his childhood friend Luke shared a secret... A secret Falk thought long-buried... A secret which Luke's death starts to bring to the surface...

The Dry was a  pleasant surprise for me. Aaron Falk is an investigator who comes back to his old hometown for a friend's funeral.  It seems like his friend Luke killed his family and himself in a bizarre murder/suicide.  Things don't seem to add up for Aaron and the local police captain.  The Answers to  a disappearance years before might have a play in the case.

As I said, I was pleasantly surprised by this book.  The story goes between the present and 20 years before.  We get glimpses into what really happened on the days leading up to the disappearance of a young girl who happened to be a school friend of Aaron's.  I'm not going to give away any of the plot because there are quite a few surprises.  I honestly never saw most of them coming.

 I definitely recommend this one and look forward to the next book featuring Aaron.  I enjoyed his character and really want to see him in future books.  The Dry does have a fairly slow pace, so if you are looking for a fast moving thriller, you won't find it here.  Instead, you are in for a steady, "suck you in mystery" that will keep you guessing until the end.