The third in Jane Harper's Aaron Falk series offers procedural detail, a lush Australian setting, and character development I found heartwarming and immensely satisfying.
Jane Harper's The Dry (Aaron Falk #1) is set in small-town Australia with dark secrets and twists and turns, and she offers more of her excellent pacing in Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2).
In Exiles, Jane Harper tells another Aaron Falk story, as Federal Investigator Falk ventures into Australian wine country for the christening of a friend's baby.
But the year-old mysterious disappearance of Kim Gillespie, a young woman from the area, hooks Falk and his old friend Raco, and they can't stop asking questions of the fractured group of Kim's friends and family to try to understand potential motives, details, and dark secrets.
I love Aaron Falk stories and I loved the twisty interconnectedness of the characters in Exiles. Harper allows for Falk to develop more fully as a character--as a friend, a romantic interest, a father figure, and a detective. Yet she allows for new opportunities for him that felt real and possible, which I again loved.
I wasn't ever sure who was responsible for the multiple tragedies at the heart of the story, and the resolutions make sense. Meanwhile Harper explores loyalty, procedural details related to the past and near past, beginnings and endings, and looooove.
I'm in for all Jane Harper and all Aaron Falk stories! Exiles was the right mystery at the right time for me.
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
Harper often sets her stories in an Australian bush setting, and her somewhat spare writing style complements the stark, often brutal backdrop. This often makes her books feel like Westerns to me, as with her book The Lost Man.
The Survivors, which is set on the Tasmanian coast, is one of my favorite Harper novels.