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Heaven: 2022 book for January - "The Dry" by Jane Harper

TukaiTukai Shipmate
edited August 2022 in Limbo
Happy new year, and pleasurable reading to bookish shipmates! (especially if in lockdown)

For January 2022, our book is The Dry by Jane Harper. Set in and around a farming township in rural Australia, this is the best-selling detective novel that opened a fashion for Australian “rural noir”. It centres on the recent death of a young farming family, under financial and other stress because of a long-running drought. It looks like a murder/suicide (which were all too common for those reasons at the time the book was published) but not everyone thinks so. And is it linked to the death of the daughter of a neighbouring farm 20 years earlier?
That drought had been going on for several years when the book was written in 2016, and was still there in 2019, when a film of The Dry was released. For those who may not have seen meadows (“paddocks” ) that are not green, the film accurately shows the dry dusty brown ‘wasteland’ that prevailed in places like this book’s locale. . .
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Comments

  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    Happy New Year to you too!

    I’m at the airport, off to Majorca. I’ll have plenty of reading time so I have just downloaded ‘The Dry’ and I will start reading it on the plane. ✈️
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    edited January 2022
    I listened to The Dry when it was serialised on radio and thought then that I'd like to read the book.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I have placed a hold at the library, so hopefully will get it in time to join in!
  • I've just bought it on Kindle. I did check the library but there isn't an e-book copy and the tree version is out on loan at the other end of the county, so unlikely to arrive on time.
  • MaramaMarama Shipmate
    While the stereotype of Australia as a land of mad spiders is not quite true, I did notice while (re)reading The Dry mention of huntsmen and redbacks. Huntsman spiders are large and hairy and tend to live indoors but are basically harmless, if scary-looking. Redback spiders are much smaller and are poisonous. They live under rocks and other dark places, and, notoriously, under outdoor toilet seats. I've seen them in our garden, and well remember son (aged c 4) coming in and telling me he'd found a black spider with a red stripe! Even at 4 he knew to leave spiders alone.
  • The biggest huntsman I've ever seen was not indoors, but under the bark my step-son was carefully lifting from a large eucalypt near where we were camping.
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    I read this last year - on the recommendation from someone from the Ship. It was fab - and I recommended it on. I'll try and chime in with comments when the discussion emerges - hope there are some recollections in my grey cells!

    In other news - UK spider bites - yuck yuck yuck. I'm sporting quite a nicely swollen thumb from a spider bite - I disturbed the poor little thing when I was sorting out a few pots on my balcony. He or she must have had a fright but boy they have teeth!
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Picked up a copy at the library this morning.
  • Am in the middle of the library audiobook as I would have had to wait or the hard copy. Looking forward to it as I enjoyed The Lost Man by the same author
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Marama wrote: »
    While the stereotype of Australia as a land of mad spiders is not quite true, I did notice while (re)reading The Dry mention of huntsmen and redbacks. Huntsman spiders are large and hairy and tend to live indoors but are basically harmless, if scary-looking. Redback spiders are much smaller and are poisonous. They live under rocks and other dark places, and, notoriously, under outdoor toilet seats. I've seen them in our garden, and well remember son (aged c 4) coming in and telling me he'd found a black spider with a red stripe! Even at 4 he knew to leave spiders alone.

    @Marama, your huntsman is our common rain spider (Palystes superciliosus) in South Africa, they come indoors to shelter from the rain and are harmless if disconcerting to have around. Your redback spider might be Latrodectus, our black widow with a neurotoxic bite. Most large spiders have weak jaws so we're always taught to avoid smaller spiders, the button or violin spiders that are really poisonous.

    I'm hoping to get a copy of The Dry through my local library. Drought is always topical here.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Started it last night; it's a keeper.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Helix wrote: »
    I read this last year - on the recommendation from someone from the Ship. It was fab - and I recommended it on. I'll try and chime in with comments when the discussion emerges - hope there are some recollections in my grey cells!

    In other news - UK spider bites - yuck yuck yuck. I'm sporting quite a nicely swollen thumb from a spider bite - I disturbed the poor little thing when I was sorting out a few pots on my balcony. He or she must have had a fright but boy they have teeth!

    Keep an eye on it. Mrs T needed steroids to bring down a swollen finger caused by a false Widow.
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Helix wrote: »
    I read this last year - on the recommendation from someone from the Ship. It was fab - and I recommended it on. I'll try and chime in with comments when the discussion emerges - hope there are some recollections in my grey cells!

    In other news - UK spider bites - yuck yuck yuck. I'm sporting quite a nicely swollen thumb from a spider bite - I disturbed the poor little thing when I was sorting out a few pots on my balcony. He or she must have had a fright but boy they have teeth!

    Keep an eye on it. Mrs T needed steroids to bring down a swollen finger caused by a false Widow.

    Thanks Karl - the thumb has gone down but yes there was a nasty swelling for a few days and oooh the burning and itching. We don't think this could occur in UK.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    I have collected my library copy.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    I just finished "The Dry" early this morning and am looking forward to the discussion!
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    After 20 pages I realised I had read this before. I have reached chapter 10, and although I now remember what I had read, I have only the vaguest idea of what is coming.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I just had two on-hold books come through from the library one after another. The Dry was the second one and I was afraid if the other one took too long I might not get it before the loan period expired (disadvantage to library e-books; you can't just keep them out late like regularly library books as they will vanish off your device on the appointed day). However, the other book turned out to be one I really loved and devoured in a single day, so The Dry is next up for me; will be starting it tonight.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Finished it last night. A great book with many twists ands turns.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    So, here are some questions for discussion.

    Warning: While I don't think the questions contain any spoilers, I can't guarantee the same will be true for the responses.

     Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?
     Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?
     This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?
     Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?
     Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.
     The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did the narrator’s unravelling of the events of 20 years ago illuminate the present day mystery, or just distract from it?
  • Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?
    I think so, although having never experienced it, I don't know.

    Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?
    Yes, this rang very true.

    This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?
    I didn't think it showed; as a journalist the author was already a professional writer, albeit this was her first novel.

    Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen,
    I am useless at guessing who did it. I didn't foresee who had killed Karen.

    (b) Ellie?
    I didn't foresee exactly, but I had a general idea from quite early on in the book.

    (I'll answer the rest of the questions later.)



  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I just finished it. It was a very quick read for me; I found myself quite caught up and raced through it in a day. I will return to the questions tomorrow. Hopefully it's far enough along into the month that we can allow spoilers in the discussion and people won't join in until they've finished reading.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    OK, my thoughts:

    Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?

    Absolutely. This was one of the strongest points of the novel for me: coming from a place where our weather problems never include "too hot" and "not enough rain," this is something that would have been hard for me to picture if it weren't so vividly described. The detail of the children in school drawing pictures with sad-faced people standing on brown fields will stay with me.
    Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?

    Yes -- and this part, I think, is indeed somewhat universal. The secrets, the grudges, the long-held resentments -- all of that I could see happening in a story set in a small town near me.
    Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?

    Not easily! I'm terrible at solving mysteries, although I always really try. I'll put the rest of my commentary on this part under spoiler tags in case someone else hasn't finished it yet.
    I thought the setup here was very typical of a mystery: the obvious suspect (Luke himself) who is clearly not guilty; the guy(s) who should be guilty but the clues don't fit (Grant and Mal) two red herrings (Jamie and Gretchen) who we find out are not guilty, and then the unsuspected person who's been in the background all along who turns out to be the actual killer, but the clues were there if you knew what to look for.

    I thought for some time that the school principal might be the killer, but it was meta-analysis based on thinking about how a mystery is constructed, not me actually solving the mystery. I felt that he was minor enough not to be an obvious suspect, yet kept cropping up and we kept getting more information about him for no apparent reason. So that made him a suspect in my mind, but I had no idea until the final reveal what his motive might be. I did notice that the Crossley Trust grant was mentioned a couple of times in a way that made it seem like OBVIOUS CLUE, but I did not put it all together until Falk did, and I totally missed the (very good, I thought) twist that "Grant" was not a reference to Grant the character but to the missing grant money.

    With Ellie's murder, I thought it was likely that her father had killed her -- there didn't seem to be any motive for Luke to have done it, even though he was obviously covering something up. I thought it was going to turn out that Ellie was pregnant by her abusive dad, and that she was planning either to commit suicide, or to go for an abortion that was thwarted by her murder. But then I realized that when the police report said she wasn't a virgin, it would also have mentioned if she was pregnant. So I didn't really have that one figured out either.
    Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.

    I thought all the characters, even minor ones like the bartender, were well drawn and believable; none of them seemed like stereotypes to me. All the victims were sympathetic in their ways, which for me makes a murder mystery harder to read (it's easier to treat it as purely an intellectual puzzle when somebody really horrible has been killed), but also made me care more about whether their killers were found. I liked that a lot of characters -- Gretchen is a good example, but so is Luke -- are multifaceted, not purely good or bad. I was even able to feel a bit of sympathy for
    the killer (the family's killer, not Ellie's -- no sympathy there) as he had made terrible choices and brought it all on himself, but you could also see how things had just spiralled out of control and he was genuinely terrified for what the gangsters he owed money to would do to his family. Not in any way a motive to murder someone else's family, but I did see how he felt caught in a trap
    .

    If anyone was a bit of a blank it was Falk himself -- I think we learn a lot more about younger Falk than about the man he is now, and present-day Falk seems like a bit of the stereotype of the hard-bitten, emotionally-closed-off, wounded-by-the-past detective -- except he's not really a detective, of course.

    The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did the narrator’s unravelling of the events of 20 years ago illuminate the present day mystery, or just distract from it?

    I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of the past and present-day stories and the ways they influenced each other. The thing that was a bit surprising to me were the italicized passsages (in both timelines) which usually relate things from an omniscient viewpoint that our main character Falk couldn't possibly know. But I decided I liked that. It did away, for example, with the convention of having the killer give a long and improbable monologue when they're caught, explaining all their motives and how they did it -- having that narrated rather than shoehorned into a confession was much more believable.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?

    Absolutely. The dried river was like a gut punch.
    I kept hoping for some rain to appear. How these people could keep on going was difficult to understand. Home is hard to leave for most people, I guess.

    Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?

    Oh, yes. It was frustrating to read about, probably because those secrets and assumptions remind me so much of things I've experienced.

    This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?

    Doing such a good job on the first book is amazing. They must have a lot of writing practice in other instances to make this book such a page-turner.

    Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?

    Karen, not really.
    Hidden text because of a spoiler.
    Ellie's murder seemed to be more transparent because of her treatment by her family.

    Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.

    I found the characters to be a mixed bag in a way. But, I think it was probably because I found myself either liking them or not-which is probably because they were well written. I did find that I really wanted to know about Falk since he did seem to keep his private feelings hidden from others.
    Spoiler alert again.
    Ellie's father infuriated me because of the gaslighting and fecal matter stirring he was always doing. What an anal orifice, even beyond what he did to Ellie!!!

    The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did the narrator’s unravelling of the events of 20 years ago illuminate the present day mystery, or just distract from it?

    After the initial flashback, I came to look for them to help me understand what was going on. It wasn't distracting at all.
  • MiliMili Shipmate

    Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?

    I have lived through a long drought, but in the city so the worst we suffered were water restrictions. Despite living in Victoria, the Australian state where the book is set, I have not visited that specific region often. I do have friends from the region, but they lived in town, not farms.

    My early reference for droughts on Australian farms were western New South Wales as my Great Grandparents had a sheep (wool) and wheat farm there. They always seemed to be in drought when we visited. They stayed on through their first baby dying at birth, droughts, crop destroying hail storms, mouse plagues, disputes with neighbours that led to their house being burnt down before they moved in and my Great Grandfather threatening a neighbour who a fortune teller told him was having an affair with his wife. My teenage Great Uncle had to talk him down and he was never charged as the neighbour recognised he had PTSD from WWI, but he spent some time in Melbourne working in a munitions factory in WWII until things cooled down. After that he returned to the farm until his death and my Great Grandmother moved to the local town and rented the land to others. My Great Grandmother was a war bride from Birmingham, UK, so it was a real culture shock to move far away from family to an Australian farm at 19 or 20 years old. She became very active in the community and was involved in the local Country Women's Association. My Great Grandfather's father also drowned in the dam before most of his children were adults and his mother lost all her brothers and a baby in various dreadful accidents on their farms in South Australia. I have never been super keen to try farming myself!

    My Grandfather always loved the country and loved to see wheat (or Teff in Ethiopia) growing well in the good times, due to having experience of the bad times. But he left for a holiday to Sydney at 16 and never returned apart from visits, later becoming a missionary in Ethiopia. Later in Australia he worked with an organisation that raised money for missions through farmers donating sale proceeds from animals so often visited farmers throughout Victoria and had a connection to the land that way and befriended many farmers, so would be more familiar with the affects of drought than I. Of course my other early experience of droughts were the aid ads for the drought in Ethiopia which was much more horrific as poverty and war meant drought caused human deaths as well as animal deaths and human mental suffering. The people my family knew there were not in drought affected areas, but we were still upset we couldn't help more. Later I understood more about how Australian droughts affected farm families mentally, but was always relieved that at least government and charities here can support people to survive the hard times physically.

    Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?

    I have never lived in a small town, but they certainly match up with the stories of family and friends who have or do live in small towns.

    This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?

    I wouldn't have known it was her first book. It was very engaging and well written.

    Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?

    I suspected the principal fairly early on as I picked up the reference to the grant as it seemed strange that they pointedly mentioned the charity they applied to funds from. Also some schools have playgrounds that are a bit run down, but they remove any dangerous equipment for safety so I was already wondering why they had a broken slide at the school which drew my attention to what was going on there. Once the word grant came up in the book my suspicions were mostly confirmed.

    Having worked in many schools as a supply teacher I have met many types of principals, including at least one who was found to be using his position to funnel school funds to family members. Many are good, but I have met some bad ones and bullies too. At first I thought the Kiewarra principal was one of the good ones, but began to see he was one who looked good to the community, but was not so great behind closed doors or to staff that got in his way. The gambling habit was also a big clue as there are many cases here of people stealing from workplaces just to feed the pokies. That alone would be a good motive for theft and corruption, but I guess the author felt the need for threatening gangsters to provide a motive for murder.

    Due to local knowledge I didn't buy the whole story at Footscray station as I have been there and know there are security cameras and also PSOs (Protective Service Officers) there at night. The author spent some of her childhood in Boronia, which is closer to where I live, and such a crime could just as easily happen at that train station, probably more likely given the designs of the two stations. I have been there at night and felt more nervous than at Footscray Station. But she chose a suburb more stereotypically known for drug dealing and crime.

    I wasn't so sure about Ellie's murderer. Her father or cousin seemed the obvious suspects, so I wondered if the murderer would be Luke or Gretchen. It was more interesting to have that question mark over Luke as Falk solved his family's murders.

    Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.

    The characters seemed pretty well rounded. I agree that it made it more interesting that Luke did have some character flaws that made him seem a possible suspect.

    The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did the narrator’s unravelling of the events of 20 years ago illuminate the present day mystery, or just distract from it?

    I enjoyed having two mysteries and the way the past mystery impacted on Falk and his treatment by various people in town.

  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host

    Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?
    I thought the drought and the effects it wrought on the town was very well done, and of course it added to the tension during the denouement.

    Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?
    I've very rarely lived in a small town or as part of the sort of interdependent community shown here, but it all sounded very credible.

    This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?
    It didn't read like a first book. It was well constructed and the characters were credible.

    Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?
    I knew it wouldn't have been Luke who killed Karen, otherwise there would have been no story, and if he had done it I think he would have killed the baby as well. The Ellie mystery was well constructed, with enough of a mystery to not make what really happened too obvious. I thought the finding of the backpack at the end seemed a bit unlikely, and a bit of a literary device.

    Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.
    They were a good cast of characters and I thought the way Mel's dementia was portrayed was very convincing.

    The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did the narrator’s unravelling of the events of 20 years ago illuminate the present day mystery, or just distract from it?
    I thought the construction enabled the present day story to be told at a good pace, and finding out what happened in the past bit by bit is always something I like in a story.

    I thoroughly enjoyed it and have since read Force of Nature, which I also thought was rather good.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?

    I did not feel like the effects that the drought could have on residents was strongly portrayed. I think the author could have built more of a sense of tension.

     Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?

    Small town dynamics and secrets were well-portrayed. Even though I live in a city, it has that small town dynamic with often no more than 2 degrees of separation between the populace.

     This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?

    It was a great first book. The repeated reference of the sign stating the extreme conditions metaphorically represented the situation of the investigation and served as foreshadowing of the climax. The finding of the backpack seemed a little less contrived, almost a deus ex machina moment.

     Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?

    It was clear that Karen’s husband had not committed the murders or there would not have been a novel. I didn’t countenance to the principal until late although the author did sprinkle breadcrumbs. I was pretty sure the father had some culpability especially when the author said the autopsy found that Ellie was not a virgin. The author gave no hints that she was sexually active with any of the males she was hanging around with. I wasn’t sure if he had driven her to suicide or had killed her.

     Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.

    As secondary characters they were not fully developed but developed enough to give us a picture of their personalities. The representation of the early to mid stages of dementia was well-portrayed.

     The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did the narrator’s unravelling of the events of 20 years ago illuminate the present day mystery, or just distract from it?

    I loved that the author was using the past to move the plot forward. I found myself yearning for new tidbits.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    Perhaps I should add some of my own responses.

    Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?
    Yes, but I may not be a good judge of this as I already knew what it’s like, as I had lived through such a drought, living in an inland city surrounded by sheep farms and bushland (which suffered huge bushfires) .

    This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?
    No. I found out later, from an author’s preface to one edition, that she had long experience as a journalist, so was used to writing, though new to constructing a novel. She was encouraged and assisted to try a novel by the teacher and her classmates in a creative writing class. So maybe some shipmate may be similarly inspired!

    Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?
    Not easily, though as several have pointed out upthread, one felt that Karen’s husband must be innocent or there would be no novel.

    Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.
    Both Falk and Raco are stock character types in many crime novels: respectively the investigator with a backstory, and the honest policeman doing his best in an unfamiliar setting. But I though Raco , trying as an outsider to get to grips with unsympathetic locals, was well portrayed, especially with his family who have gamely followed him. Gretchen, who has not done as well as she would have hoped, comes across as a real person, with her alternating sympathy with and hostility to Falk. So too does Whitlam, the doctor who has his own problems.

    The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did they help move the story along?
    In general I tend to find flashbacks distracted and (in some books) baffling as I struggle to understand which period the writer is talking about. However, here they did sort themselves out after a few sentences. But as the past events had shaped the present attitudes of most of the characters, the flashbacks did offer some illumination to what I see as the main story.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    Did the writing effectively convey to you what an Australian drought is like, and the effect it can have on those under it?
    Living in one of the greener areas of Australia, it did seem just like the reports on the news, though I am not sure that fires would be immediately that ferocious. But the perseverance despite seeming hopelessness is often reported. Suicides are not uncommon.

    Similarly for the small-town dynamics and ‘secrets’ , which are perhaps similar elsewhere in the world?
    The town was very small. Was it a one-teacher school? Everybody mentioned had an opinion on Aaron and Luke as if there was no way that they could live without coming up against prejudice 24hrs a day. Maybe that is necessary to keep focus in a novel.

    This was the author’s first book. Did this show? If so, how?
    I did not think it showed.

    Could you easily foresee from clues in the book who had killed (a) Karen, or (b) Ellie?
    I think it is characteristic of this genre in books and TV series that clues are released sparingly and to divert divert from the real culprits. Whitlam's gambling habit was divulged quite late.
    But LKKspouse generally works these things out earlier than I do.

    Did you find the characters to be real people or just stereotypes? Did any stick out either way? Consider in particular, Gretchen, Mandy, Dow, Whitlam, Raco, and especially Falk.
    I found the characters to be real, except that I was surprised that Whitlam could keep his gambling habit so secret. It should have been known that he spent a lot of time on the pokies.

    The book had many flashbacks from the present to 20 years ago. Did the narrator’s unravelling of the events of 20 years ago illuminate the present day mystery, or just distract from it?
    I liked the way the stories were interpolated, and the earlier stories being in italics was a clear indication of the time. The earlier stories were a good background to the present, better than being just narrated by the author.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    Shipmates who enjoyed The Dry may also enjoy the three other novels that Jane Harper has published since this one. All are murder mysteries set in rural Australia, though in very different parts of Australia, in all of which the resolution of the mystery depends on events from a decade or so ago. My personal pick of the bunch would be The Lost Man , which is set in an even drier part of Australia, but in my opinion they are all worth a read though YMMV.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    My library copy hasn't arrived yet but after reading this thread, I can't wait to get started.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    Where is the thread that has the list of books for 2022? I'm trying to find February's.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Here you go, @LatchKeyKid
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    Thanks @MaryLouise . I have taken it out on loan as an eBook.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I'll bump up the 2022 thread @LatchKeyKid, as it seems in danger of sliding over the horizon and it is very nearly next month.
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