The bestselling author of The Dry, which has been made into a movie, is back with her latest book featuring federal investigator Aaron Falk.
A year after a busy festival when a mother, Kim Gillespie, went missing, leaving her baby alone in her pram, Aaron returns to Marralee Valley in South Australia to join his friends at the celebration of their baby’s christening. But still on everyone’s mind in this small, tight-knit community is Kim’s mysterious absence and the mystery of leaving her young baby alone in a pram, a grieving husband and ex and their teenage daughter behind.
On the anniversary of the disappearance, the family hand out fliers at the festival, hoping that one of the returning festival goers might remember anything from the previous year that might tell them what happened to Kim. That she is deceased seems almost inevitable, but still, doubts linger about what might have happened to her, as her body has never been found. But what prompted her to leave her baby behind in a pram and seemingly disappear into thin air? There are rumours she was depressed; she had lost touch with many friends and family since her new marriage. There was also another death, a hit-and-run accident not long before. Are Kim’s disappearance and the car accident somehow connected?
Aaron begins to suspect there is more going on with the people in this community than what would appear at first glance…
Like all other Jane Harper novels, it has a tremendous sense of place, this time in the beautiful wine region of South Australia. The mystery at the heart of the novel is not explained until right at the end, and the characterisation is superb, as we follow the lives of this close-knit community then and a year on as they search for answers.
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Macmillan Publishers