Harper presta molto cura al luogo, al paesaggio, la natura, l’ambientazione: non si tratta di semplice “atmosfera”, riesce a rendere questo elemento parte della storia, come se fosse un personaggio. Forse per questo nei suoi libri i personaggi camminano molto, si muovono spesso a piedi, oltre che in macchina. Now, a year later, Kim's older teenage daughter, Zara, and Falk's friend Greg Raco have asked him to look into the case as they ask anyone at this year's festival with more information to come forward. As he looks into the case, questions begin to emerge. What happened to Kim Gilles? What would make a mother abandon her child? Thank you to Jane Harper, Macmillan Audio with a fine narration by Stephen Shananhan, and NetGalley for the ability to listen to this story, which published on January 31, 2023. Another sad event is the hit and run death, several years ago, of Dean, one of the many classmates of Kim and the group of kids she hung around in high school. This story involves a lot of folks who have been close for a couple of decades and along with knowing each other for so long there are rumors and innuendos that run beneath the surface of polite conversation between the people present now. Who is the person whose vehicle ran Dean down? What caused Kim to pull away from her friends and family in the last year or so before she disappeared? Why would she walk away from her new baby? Was it suicide, a kidnapping, or did Kim just want to be done with the life she was leading?

Overall, while I did like Jane Harper’s Exiles, I wasn’t completely bowled over by it as other readers have been. The investigation leads to one of Kim’s shoes being found in the dam filter of the reservoir, the drop overlooking it located within walking distance of the fairground. What happened to Kim? Was it suicide? Murder? Or did Kim simply leave of her own accord? But, why?While visiting a friend to attend a christening, AFP Officer Aaron Falk finds himself caught up in the case of a woman who went missing a year ago during a town festival and in an unsolved murder from years ago. The man nodded at Falk and as his daughter swallowed her last mouthful, he hoisted her up and carried her to their car. He seemed to sense he’d been recognized, and his body language didn’t invite questions or conversation. Fair enough, really, Falk thought. The bloke would have had plenty of questions thrown his way at the time. The husbands always did. This is very much a character driven mystery, my very favourite kind, and I relished the seemingly slow pace, the introduction of another, older, unsolved crime, and a welcome diversion in Falk's private life. The police found Kim's shoe in a reservoir near the fairgrounds, and concluded the missing woman committed suicide. However Kim's body was never found, and Kim's teenage daughter Zara - from a previous relationship with Charlie Raco (Greg's brother) - refuses to believe Kim killed herself. Jane Harper scrive thriller particolari, che si distinguono: c’è poca violenza e poco sangue, pochi morti; c’è un fatto, o più, del passato che stende ali di colpa e inquietudine sul presente; c’è un presente che va sistemato riconciliandosi col passato, risolvendo cosa e come è davvero successo tempo prima.

Jane Harper writes a smart and intricately plotted addition to her Aaron Falks, Federal Financial Investigator series, this time set in Aussie wine country, in the beautiful green and lush Marralee Valley, with Falk making the time to come to his good friends, Greg and Rita Raco's small son, Henry's christening at their family home and winery run by Greg's brother, Charlie. It had been postponed from the previous year when 39 year old mother, Kim Gillespie,went missing, leaving behind her baby daughter, Zoe, in the pram park at the Annual Marralee Food and Wine Festival. Kim had returned to see her older daughter from her previous relationship with Charlie, Zara, with her engineer husband, Rohan, her shoe was found in the reservoir, and she was assumed to have committed suicide, after suffering from depression for some time. As he looks into Kim’s case, long-held secrets and resentments begin to come to the fore, secrets that show that her community is not as close as it appears. After hearing great things about award-winning Australian author Jane Harper’s writing, I’ve been keen to read her work for quite sometime. So when I saw it was available, I requested an advance copy of Exiles, immediately. It’s the third book in Harper’s Aaron Falk series. I waited a long while to get a copy, but it was well worth it. Exiles does not disappoint.

Jane Harper's standalone novels

Aaron Falk has a lot of baggage, which he is also working to resolve. And I became more than a little frustrated with him over his indecision and often inept pursuit of Gemma when it seemed clear they should get together. But Falk, a mixture of subtlety and pathos, is a character I liked immediately and seems a real person. Harper also expertly fleshes out the rest of the cast who seem like people I can easily imagine might inhabit rural Australia. All are relatable and I felt like I got to know all the characters well by the end of the book. Unlike other Australian authors I’ve read, who use descriptions of the Australian landscape to establish a sense of place, Harper relies more (at least in this book) on using the Australian manner of speech in both dialogue and inner thoughts of the characters to accomplish that. It’s effective and makes the reader aware the story takes place in Australia, yet perhaps not as effectively as Australian writers, who descriptively transform the sense of place into almost a character in its own right. The Australian Mystery Road movies and television series are good examples of this. And I’ve read several novels where the authors used similar techniques in their prose. Harper’s technique isn’t necessarily bad, just different. Meanwhile, Zara's uncle Greg Raco, who's a police officer, plans to continue investigating Kim's disappearance.... and he asks Aaron Falk to help.