The Dry

My crime novel of the year is Jane Harper's The Dry...The savage beauty of the landscape makes an unforgettable setting' * Joan Smith, Sunday Times Crime Book of the Year 2017 * A book that has atmosphere to spare, as well as a pleasing number of twists and turns. Elegant and gripping * Ian Rankin, Guardian Best Books of 2017 * Australian first-timer Jane Harper suggested a potential torrent of talent with The Dry, in which a man returns to the outback town from which he had been summarily exiled as a teenager. He is there to attend the funeral of a childhood best mate who is believed to have killed his wife and son, before turning the gun on himself. But the case is clearly not as simple as that and, in the tense setting of a landcape where it hasn't rained for two years, Harper slowly but thrillingly reveals where the truth lies. * Mark Lawson, Guardian Best Crime Books and Thrillers of 2017 * Jane Harper's The Dry has a protagonist returning from a self-imposed exile to a tiny hometown riven with fear, though the backdrop here is the drought-plagued Australian outback. Harper depicts it so well that the book would have reduced me to a sweaty, crumpled heap on the floor had I not been energised by her diabolically clever plotting * Jake Kerridge, the Best Thrillers and Crime Fiction of 2017, Telegraph * It is hard to believe that this accomplished piece of writing, which returns again and again to the savage beauty of the landscape, is Harper's first novel * Sunday Times, Crime Book of the Month January 2017 * Harper's debut novel is The Dry, a crime thriller making its way up The Sunday Times Bestsellers charts as steadily as the mercury rises each day in the stricken agricultural town of Kiewarra, in which it is set...It feels like an Ur-Australian novel, a whodunit that evokes the punishing landscape and searing aridity so convincingly, you expect a heat haze to shimmer above the page -- Patricia Nichol * Culture, Sunday Times * Wonderfully atmospheric, The Dry is both a riveting murder mystery and a beautifully wrought picture of a rural community under extreme pressure * Mail on Sunday Thriller of the Week, January 2017 * I devoured it in just over 24 hours...Spellbinding * Ian Rankin * A stunningly atmospheric read * Val McDermid, bestselling author of Out of Bounds * A cracking small-town thriller wound tight by desperation in a deadly Australian drought * Hilary Spurling, Spectator Books of the Year * An award-winner in its native Australia, in this first book from journalist Harper a local cop investigates the murder of a family in a small town enduring the worst drought in 100 years. This could be the start of an Antipodean wave that will overtake Scandi noir -- Nick Curtis * Evening Standard, The Most Talked About Books of the Summer * This superb debut from a British-born, Australia-based journalist grips like a vice from the first paragraph to the last, atmospherically evoking the isolated town of Kiewarra, outside Melbourne, which has been rocked by a horrific murder/suicide...Told with heartbreaking precision and extraordinary emotional power, it reveals the prejudices, secrets and lies of small-town life against the background of emotions inflamed by heat * Daily Mail, Best Books for the Summer 2017 * The writing is fantastic, and the plot - where many mystery/thrillers fall short these days - was completely unpredictable in the best ways possible... Aaron Falk, returns to his hometown in Australia to mourn, and inevitably investigate, his best friend's apparent suicide. What comes next is a series of twists and turns that will keep you guessing all the way until the end. I repeatedly found myself shocked and pulled in by Harper's fast paced and engrossing writing. Truly a fantastic read and hopefully the first of many to come from Ms. Harper * An Amazon Best Book of January 2017, Amazon.com * A sad, beautifully told tale of lives regretted * The Times * 'Jane Harp

Jane Harper is the author of the international bestsellers The Dry, Force of Nature and The Lost Man. Her books are published in more than forty territories worldwide, and The Dry has been released as a major film starring Eric Bana. Jane has won numerous top awards including the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year, the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year and the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK and now lives in Melbourne.