The Dry
A top-drawer debut mystery. Aaron Falk, a Melbourne-based Federal Agent specializing in financial investigations, returns to the small Australian town from which he and his father fled twenty years ago. Back then, a girl from the high school had drowned and the townspeople had decided that either Aaron or his dad had something to do with it. Now, Aaron’s best mate from those years has shot his family and himself. The local cop has been on the job for a week; Aaron is persuaded to lend a hand. Fine sense of place, good minor characters, good plotting.