The wake is even worse, as people struggle to control their grief and the tensions simmer. Cut to the unbearable funeral service with its three 'awful' coffins and a punishing series of happy family snaps intended to honour the dead, but only serving to remind everyone of how much they have lost.

The arrival of the blowflies on the bodies at the farm is interrupted by the cry of the only survivor, Luke's baby daughter, Charlotte. It's a familiar strategy, but elegantly achieved. This involves untangling two crimes some 20 years apart. They know that Luke and Aaron lied about their whereabouts at the time of Ellie's death and it is time for Aaron to tell the truth and make amends. Luke's parents want Falk to stay and clear their son's name. He's keen to return to his neat flat in Melbourne (where the cleaners struggle to find enough to do) and his undemanding day job that involves 'following the money' in financial investigations for the Feds. At least that's what the police from the nearest big town want to think.įalk just wants to get in and get out – he's counting down the hours. In an all-too-predictable rural tragedy, Luke Hadley has apparently killed his wife, his son and then himself in the deranged act typical of a farmer driven mad by despair and drought. That river is now a dry bed of disappointment, as Falk discovers when he returns for the funeral of another of his teenage friends. At the age of 16, Falk left under a cloud of suspicion when one of his closest friends, Ellie Deacon, was drowned in the river, her pockets and boots packed with stones. Falk should know: he was born and bred in Kiewarra, a 'tiny town' now 'shimmering' under the relentless 'day after day of blue sky'.

But what disorients the hopeful city natives seeking an 'idyllic country lifestyle', as federal policeman Aaron Falk observes, is the 'crushing vastness of the open land'. Given The Dry offers such a telling account of community life in rural Australia during the worst drought for decades, one can only wonder whether a Hollywood transplant will take.Īustralian crime fiction is at its best when contemplating what lies beyond the urban sprawl. The Dry won the Victorian Premier's Award for an unpublished manuscript in 2015, has now been sold to 20 publishers worldwide and optioned as a film by American actor Reece Witherspoon's company. The expectations were always going to be high.

The dry jane harper review