I have been meaning to read Jane Harper’s books for years.
Specifically, I’ve been intending to read her first novel, ‘The Dry’, which is still loitering on my bookshelf, waiting for me to give it the attention I’m sure it deserves. Meanwhile, I’ve enjoyed reading ‘The Survivors’, her fourth standalone book set in Australia.
What’s it about?
When Keiran and his girlfriend, Mia, return with their baby girl, Audrey, to their hometown to help his parents pack up their house, they don’t expect to become embroiled in a tragedy. After all, they’ve already experienced enough trauma in their lives…
Gradually, Harper unspools their and their friends’ shared histories that resulted in the loss of three lives twelve years ago. As the police investigate and the local community seethes with gossip, secrets will gradually be revealed…
What’s it like?
This is a well crafted, character-driven, slow burn of a novel, which offers multiple possibilities to the reader along the way, (Does Verity know more than she’s admitting? Could Brian be dangerous?) but slowly settles into a solution that feels like the inevitable result of the characters and their known histories. I loved it.
Harper convinces the reader of her characters and it’s the interplay between them that gradually reveals the secrets the town has been hiding. I really enjoyed the ending; it felt perfectly fitting and tied everything together – including the prologue.
Final thoughts
Kieran is remarkably careless with his small daughter, in my opinion, trekking down cliff paths with her onto beaches that flood and leaving her on the beach alone while he swims, but this carelessness is perhaps part of why he feels so real; all the characters here feel very well drawn and none of them are perfect.
I really enjoyed reading this and look forward to making time to read Harper’s earlier books, starting with ‘The Dry’.
‘The Survivors’,
Jane Harper,
2020, Abacus, paperback
