No title can do this book justice.

 

I love love love this book! The Dry, by Jane Harper was absolutely fantastic and beautifully written. This book is just as good. Whilst it doesn’t contain the same beautiful descriptions of places and people, it excels in being a great mystery.

This book is about a team building exercise where a group of guys and ladies head out to bond. All of the men return on time, the women are late back and one of them does not return. The mystery is around what has happened to the missing lady, and what caused her to not return.

This book has excellent character development. A perfect drip feed of insights into the characters in the book and how they have arrived to be in this place. It also provides details into certain family members with a well-developed thread around some of the children.

The novel flashes between present days, with the cops investigating, to the actual hike, to events that occurred leading up to the hike. This is done seamlessly, with no confusion and with the perfect balance. Allowing suspense to build with a smooth and natural pace.

My only criticism would be the name choices, specifically having the twins with very similar names made me have to think carefully about which traits and events related to which twin (minor issue).

I give this book 4 ½ stars and will round it up to 5, as it was definitely an excellent well-paced and well developed story with intriguing characters. Jane Harper not only creates a fascinating and intriguing story, but writes it exceptionally well.