The Dry by Jane Harper
The Dry was probably one of the most critically acclaimed crime novels of 2017, so I don't know why it's taken me two years to getting round to reading it and I'm sorry I'm so late to this particular party.
Anyway. The Dry opens, incredibly ominously, in a drought-ridden, isolated Australian farming community where the flies are swarming. What they're attracted by is death, and this time it's not the bodies of starving cattle they're buzzing over. The Hadler family has died in what's apparently a classic 'family annihilation' case in which the father, Luke, has murdered his wife and son before turning the gun on himself to avoid facing the failure of the family farm. But why didn't Luke show any previous signs of depression? And why is one member of the family, baby Charlotte, still alive?
Luke's parents, clutching at any possible straw that might reveal that their son didn't kill his family after all, look for help from Aaron Falk, …
Anyway. The Dry opens, incredibly ominously, in a drought-ridden, isolated Australian farming community where the flies are swarming. What they're attracted by is death, and this time it's not the bodies of starving cattle they're buzzing over. The Hadler family has died in what's apparently a classic 'family annihilation' case in which the father, Luke, has murdered his wife and son before turning the gun on himself to avoid facing the failure of the family farm. But why didn't Luke show any previous signs of depression? And why is one member of the family, baby Charlotte, still alive?
Luke's parents, clutching at any possible straw that might reveal that their son didn't kill his family after all, look for help from Aaron Falk, …
