The Dry by Jane Harper and One Little Mistake by Lucinda Berry

I read more thrillers!

The Dry by Jane Harper

Finance investigator Aaron Falk hasn’t visited the struggling farming community of Kiewarra in over 20 years—not since he was run out of town for his association with a dead girl. But when his childhood best friend commits a grisly murder-suicide Aaron is called to attend the funeral and gets roped into the investigation.

This was a solid crime novel, to quote one of the blurbs on the back; it has twists on every page. My favorite thing about Jane Haper’s books are her endings–she writes revelations right up to the last word on the last page.

I’ve been experimenting with crime thrillers this year and this is one of my favorites. I liked that it had a character-driven angle with Falk’s past.

The audiobook is narrated by Steve Shanahan and, while Shanahan is an excellent narrator, I can’t say I recommend this on audio. The editing on the version I listened to was rough. There were a lot of long pauses for no reason and in some parts, you could hear room noise.  I see there are two versions of Audible so maybe they fixed it after the book got popular?

But also, the storytelling relies on flashbacks that occur mid-scene and it can get confusing on audio. In the book the flashbacks are represented by italics but that does not come off at all on audio. I had to switch to print for this one.

I think I’m going to attempt to finish Harper’s backlist this year. I want to do The Survivors next since it seems to focus on a cast of women.

One Little Mistake by Lucinda Berry

This is a short review so I figure I’d pop it into this one while I’m talking about crime thrillers.

I had to do some dreaded baseboard cleaning and picked up this audiobook to keep me motivated. It’s a little under 2.5 hours and follows the downward spiral of a suburban mom who is arrested for a DUI—even though she hasn’t had a drop to drink,  It was an engrossing domestic thriller but the ending was pretty unsatisfactory. It just kind of fizzled out with nothing overly memorable or twisty. Brittany Pressley excels as a narrator and allows you to sink right in the main character’s head as she puzzles her sudden change in life circumstances.