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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.

However, not everyone is satisfied with this explanation, particularly the guilt and grief stricken Zara, who is convinced that Kim would never have abandoned her baby, it was so out of character, and a appeal for any further information on Kim is being made, both by the police and family, at this year's festival. Falk is at the heart of this gripping narrative, finding himself at a personal crossroads with his strong feelings for Gemma Tozer, devoted to her stepson, Joel, and who lost her husband, Dean, in a hit and run accident 6 years ago whilst he was out running, the driver had never been identified. Falk finds himself drawn into the family and friends dramas and the small town community and becomes central in solving the mystery of what happened to Kim and his dogged determination even wins out eventually as he chips away at who could possibly have run over Dean Tozer.

This is a slow burn of a crime read, but once I became immersed into the multilayered storylines, I could not stop reading until I had finished. I believe this is the last in the series, which is a real shame, because Falk is a terrific character that still has plenty of mileage left in him, I will miss him, although it was good to see him break through his personal blocks and establish himself in a new life that he would have never envisaged previously. This is a wonderfully engaging and dark crime read, with a fabulous sense of location, that I wholeheartedly recommend both to fans of Jane Harper and to other crime and mystery readers. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.