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***WOW THIS KINDLE BOOK IS ONLY $2.99 ON AMAZON UNTIL 7/31,23***

I am feeling both happy and sad. I’m happy that this new Jane Harper novel is every bit as good as her previous novels but sad that I will have to now wait for her next one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was a bit surprised that this book was set on the Tasmanian coast after reading The Dry and The Lost Man. I never knew I could see beauty in the Australian outback until I read those books. But Ms. Harper is a master of atmosphere and I quickly found myself caught up in the new setting.

Evelyn Bay is a small coastal town in Tasmania. Kieran and his young family have returned to the town to help Kieran’s mom pack up their house. They are moving his father to a home as his dementia has been increasing rapidly. His memory is very bad and he wanders a lot. It’s impossible to keep an eye on him at all times. So his mom will get a place close by so that she can visit often. Kieran hasn’t been back to the town since the fateful storm and tragedy that took place 12 years previously. Two people died that night, Kieran’s brother Finn and Toby, Liam’s dad. A young girl, Gabby, Olivia’s younger sister, just 14, also disappeared that night, and has never been found.

Kieran was just 18 years old when a raging storm trapped him and the girl he was with, Olivia, in the treacherous caves below lookout point. This area is notorious for shipwrecks and dangerous storms. There is a large bronze statue at the base of the cliffs, titled “The Survivors�� that looks out to the sea. People can gauge how high the sea is cresting by looking at how high it reaches up the statue. On the day of the terrible storm, the crests were so high that the statue couldn’t be seen at all. When Olivia made it to dry land she sent a call for help and Finn and Toby’s boat, apparently in an attempt to rescue Kieran, hit the cliffs and toppled, killing the two men. Kieran has held the guilt inside him for all of this time. He feels it was his fault that they died trying to rescue him.

The night after Kieran is back in town, a young woman is found dead on the beach. She was here for the summer, working as a waitress but capturing lots of the coastal sights on camera for an art series she is working on at university. She is a talented young artist just beginning to discover her passion for photography.

Immediately all of the town has their own opinion on what happened, if a crime was committed and who the culprit could be.There is an online forum and it has people divulging secrets about everyone.

This is a wonderful example of Ms. Harper’s style of writing. The first half is a slow burn. She sets up the atmosphere and setting, then introduces us to the characters and their backstory.

The second half moves at a quicker and more tense pace as secrets are revealed and a detective from the mainland joins the local police in trying to uncover exactly what happened.

There are a multitude of characters but once you have them firmly set in your mind it’s pretty easy to keep track of them, both in the past and present. Everyone is a suspect until the ending and I certainly did not have this one figured out. Although I had some suspicions, they were only partly correct.

Jane Harper is a master storyteller. She builds and builds layer upon layer, to an explosive and satisfying end.

This novel is set to be published on February 2, 2021
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.

ADDENDUM: I decided to both read and listen to this novel to see which I preferred. I was a bit worried that the Australian accent of the narrator would be difficult to understand but it wasn't. However I do feel that with the multitude of characters and moving from past to present, I got the best experience out of the physical book. I would still highly recommend the audiobook. The narration is good, it sets the atmosphere and setting well and it was easy to follow.

I received the audiobook from the publisher through NetGalley