Stormy Mystery Swirls in Jane Harper's THE SURVIVORS

Set in the beach village of Evelyn Bay on the Australian island of Tasmania, The Survivors by Jane Harper is a tangled murder mystery that twists between the past and the present. 

The novel is narrated through the main character of Kieran Elliott, a local resident whose life is haunted by a tragic family incident from when he was a teenager. When the body of a young woman is recently found on the beach one morning, it sets off a police investigation that dredges up dark memories from Kieran's past.

Twelve years earlier, a massive storm hit the village, resulting in the boating death of Kieran's older brother, Finn. A young girl named Gabby Birch also disappeared in the same storm and no trace of her was ever found.

Now, in the present day, links begin to emerge between the body on the beach and the earlier case of Gabby Birch. As new facts come to light, Kieran is forced to question all his previous assumptions about the day of the great storm and what really happened then. The current murder case brings him to new suspicions about local residents. Someone he thought he knew may be a killer.

The Survivors is a brooding mystery that uncoils piece by piece as each new layer of false truth is peeled away. The novel is an addictive read that fans of author Jane Harper should enjoy.

 

Heat and Murder in Australia in THE DRY

The Dry by Jane Harper is set in the barren Outback of Australia, where a small town is suffering from an endless drought and reeling from a horrific local crime.

Three members of the Hadler family are found dead in an apparent murder-suicide at their farm. It looks like the father, Luke Hadler, killed his wife and small son, then killed himself. The farm was nearly bankrupt, maybe Luke Hadler just snapped one day. At least, that's what it looks like on the surface.

Federal Agent Aaron Falk grew up in that town and he attends the funerals. He's an unwanted exile there after the suspicious death of a young girl Falk knew twenty years earlier, when he himself was teenager. Some locals blamed Falk for the girl's death then and still nurse ugly feelings toward him.

Falk can't wait to leave, but he gets drawn into the Hadler case. Luke Hadler was a close friend once. Falk can't believe he would kill his own family that way. As Falk joins the local police investigation, new evidence that doesn't fit begins to show up. But if it turns out that Luke Hadler wasn't the killer, it means one chilling thing: someone else in the town is the murderer.

The Dry is a compelling read, set under the unforgiving heat of a parched landscape, where the unending dryness has driven someone mad enough to commit a monstrous crime.