Written by Jane Harper, released January 2017
Aaron Falk series book 1
You can read on with no spoilers!
I confess I am a detective story addict, and I listen to hours and hours of fictional murders most of the time. The majority of the novels I listen to are free or included in my membership to Audible as my 24 credits a year wouldn’t last me very long.
You’ll see from my listening statistics here that I am a book junkie, and I’m now trying to wean myself off a bit and take some time to listen to just my own thoughts for a good percentage of each day as I realised I never have absolute silence or time to compute real life!
Anyway, back to point: as I listen to hundreds of hours of crime, when I was asked to read another detective novel as a book club read, I was silently conflicted. One of the great things about book clubs is that you’re frequently required to read genres that you wouldn’t normally take a second glance at on the shelf. To be required to read a book that plops me fair and square in the middle of my soft and cozy reading comfort zone was at once joyous and pointless. However, our book club is a democracy and out of the books on the (virtual) table this one was voted in for our March discussion.
From the outset, Jane Harper had me hooked. She weaves a tale that, on the surface was cut and dried, not a whodunnit but a ‘he-did-it’ and if it wasn’t for some little hints and personal knowledge from people who insisted upon being heard, it would have been over in chapter one. Luke killed his wife and son and then turned the gun on himself. The end. But nothing was what it seemed.
Luke’s father sends a note to detective Aaron Falk which says, ‘You lied. Luke lied. Be at the funeral.’ I think crime fans all like to solve the murder from page 4 and I smugly thought I’d solved it several times throughout the book, only to realise I was being cunningly led by the incredibly talented author through a labyrinth of dead ends and false clues where the detective’s history emerged. Harper followed the usual crime formula but so obliquely that even the obligatory love interest was a mere nod to convention.
Falk grew up in Kiewarra and had moved to Melbourne to escape his past. He has no intention of staying longer than a day or so to attend the funeral but everything is wrong in Kiewarra. It hasn’t rained in the farming community for two years and that is spelling a slow death to the town. He’s not welcomed back to a place where they all despise him, but only Falk knows what he was doing all those years earlier when his friend, a troubled teenage girl went missing.
The past intertwines with the present and with the help of local cop Raco, they unravel the clues, having to jettison the emotional baggage which is dragging them all down wrong alleys until the hard facts shout the answers.
It’s not always a comfortable read, by golly, it’s a good one. I’ve used one of my valuable credits on Book number 2. I await with impatient anticipation to see how story master Harper sends my mind off on tangents.
I give this book a big fat 10 out of 10. I recommend you read it, even if you’re not a fan of Aussie crime. I wasn’t at the book club again this month as I was gadding about in Canterbury giving serious thought to reading some of Chaucer’s famous Tales (quickly dismissed upon entering the next pub), however, it sounds like the ladies of Between the Covers book club had a blast.
Bailey stood in for me at the table. When they had finished singing “On top of Old Smokey, all covered in cheese…”, and honorary book club member Bailey had called the meeting to order, they got around to discussing the book and decided it was an easily understood plot, with an interesting and unexpected twist at the end. It was a book they all looked forward to reading and get back to and marked it a 10/10 too. I don’t think any reader could ask for more than that!
In my genre comfort zone I may have been, but you just can’t blame a girl! When a good crime book falls into her lap, she dons her deerstalker and cape, picks up her magnifying glass and fingerprint powder, travels to the scene of the murder and gets investigating, falling just a little in love with the moody, troubled detective in charge.
Our next book is An Invisible Thread written by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski. It scores 4.4 out 5 on Amazon.
May your every book be a good one,
Sarah x
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx
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