Review: The Survivors
The Survivors by Jane Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Aussie author Jane Harper's fourth novel is a standalone mystery set in the fictional village of Evelyn Bay, Tasmania. The tightly-knit community was home to a tragedy over a decade before, when three young people, Finn, Toby, and Gabby died the day of a terrible storm. (While Finn and Toby drowned at sea, Gabby's death is a mystery, as her body was never found.) When Kieran Elliot returns to Evelyn Bay with his partner Mia and their baby Audrey, his primary purpose is to help his mother Verity move his father Brian to a home for those with dementia. But he is also facing a painful past in this small town, where everyone believes that his brother Finn and friend Toby died looking for him when he became stranded in dangerous caves along the Evelyn Bay shore as a high tide fatefully coincided with a historic storm. More than a few people including, he believes, his parents blame Kieran for what happened that day since the caves were known to be a dangerous place when the tide comes in. Coming home represents facing these past traumas for Kieran but also dredges up trauma for the locals, as well. Within a day of Kieran and Mia's arrival, Bronte, a young woman working at a local diner, is found drowned on the beach, shocking the Evelyn Bay residents and stirring up painful memories of Gabby's disappearance twelve years before.
This is an interesting murder mystery, and Harper does an excellent job of building a novel set in an insular community in which many residents cherish their views about their local young men being "great blokes." The investigation into Bronte's death (ruled a murder, of course) stirs up not too deeply buried feelings of guilt, anger, jealousy, and the lingering grief of the losses from twelve years before. Kieran is a character the reader empathizes with from early on, and his reasons for leaving Tasmania for a life with Mia in Sydney are abundantly clear. Locals seem bent on deflecting blame for Bronte's death onto tourists, but everyone is still pinning Finn and Toby's accidental deaths on then-teenage Kieran. They're all, not surprisingly, in the wrong. With her confident storytelling skills, Harper's The Survivors kept me guessing!
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Steven Shanahan with a lovely Aussie accent. It was a fine production of a book that's been on bestseller lists Down Under, since its release.
~ ~ ~
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Aussie author Jane Harper's fourth novel is a standalone mystery set in the fictional village of Evelyn Bay, Tasmania. The tightly-knit community was home to a tragedy over a decade before, when three young people, Finn, Toby, and Gabby died the day of a terrible storm. (While Finn and Toby drowned at sea, Gabby's death is a mystery, as her body was never found.) When Kieran Elliot returns to Evelyn Bay with his partner Mia and their baby Audrey, his primary purpose is to help his mother Verity move his father Brian to a home for those with dementia. But he is also facing a painful past in this small town, where everyone believes that his brother Finn and friend Toby died looking for him when he became stranded in dangerous caves along the Evelyn Bay shore as a high tide fatefully coincided with a historic storm. More than a few people including, he believes, his parents blame Kieran for what happened that day since the caves were known to be a dangerous place when the tide comes in. Coming home represents facing these past traumas for Kieran but also dredges up trauma for the locals, as well. Within a day of Kieran and Mia's arrival, Bronte, a young woman working at a local diner, is found drowned on the beach, shocking the Evelyn Bay residents and stirring up painful memories of Gabby's disappearance twelve years before.
This is an interesting murder mystery, and Harper does an excellent job of building a novel set in an insular community in which many residents cherish their views about their local young men being "great blokes." The investigation into Bronte's death (ruled a murder, of course) stirs up not too deeply buried feelings of guilt, anger, jealousy, and the lingering grief of the losses from twelve years before. Kieran is a character the reader empathizes with from early on, and his reasons for leaving Tasmania for a life with Mia in Sydney are abundantly clear. Locals seem bent on deflecting blame for Bronte's death onto tourists, but everyone is still pinning Finn and Toby's accidental deaths on then-teenage Kieran. They're all, not surprisingly, in the wrong. With her confident storytelling skills, Harper's The Survivors kept me guessing!
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Steven Shanahan with a lovely Aussie accent. It was a fine production of a book that's been on bestseller lists Down Under, since its release.
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