I love these books by Jane Harper, this one transported me right into the Australian wine country with it's beautiful descriptive passages. It's book 3 in the Aaron Falk series, the best yet, and can be read as a stand alone, although I recommend starting with The Dry for background information. Aaron is attending the christening of his godson and finds the small town in the Marralee Valley, and it's people, shrouded in family secrets and mysteries. The pace is steady throughout, there is plenty tension and the plot is quite intricate. Another brilliant read from the author. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

Love Jane Harper's writing, her books are beautifully crafted both from a sense of place and character perspective. I think only Ann Cleeves writes about landscape with the same vividity. For a while in this book, it seems like nothing much happens, then the reader is let in on the true nature of events. It's a slow reveal, an unspooling of threads tightly bound. Great to return to Aaron Falk too, I hope he hasn't totally disappeared from Harper's imagination as he's a fascinating and enigmatic protagonist.

Ever since I read The Dry I've been hooked on Jane Harper's books. This is brilliant, very absorbing. I love the characters and didn't guess the end at all. Very good.

Another brilliant enthralling mystery from this author. Impossible to see where it’s going and all the more enjoyable for the revisiting of characters from her previous book. Refreshing story telling, looking forward to more of the same but meanwhile don’t miss this one!

cold-case, wine-country, Australia, Australian-author, law-enforcement, series, thriller, due-diligence, mystery, small-town, relationships, domestic-violence, disappearance ***** The woman disappeared from a festival over a year ago and the investigation hit a dead end. While in the area, Falk (a federal investigator) and his pal are intrigued and set out to dig deep into the personal aspects of this case (and another as well) with meticulous due diligence. The publisher's blurb was a good hook and reeled me in sharply. This is a good read that had me doing awful household tasks just so I had an excuse to listen to this book! I'm glad that voice actor Stephen Shanahan was chosen as narrator because his speech is clear, and he works hard to differentiate the multiplicity of characters I requested and received a free temporary audiobook from Macmillan Audio via NetGalley. Thank you!