Exiles

by Jane Harper

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The third thriller in Jane Harper’s Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk series, is set in Australian wine country – and this is the great thing about Harper’s books; she’s taking us on a full tour of the country. In The Dry, we got the suffocating heat of the drought in a small rural Australian town. In Force of Nature, we're taken into the forests of a wilderness retreat. Harper creates a sense of place that sticks with the reader as much as the characters and plots. Her writing pulls us deeper into the story and before you know it you feel like you’re there.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"I love Jane Harper's Australia-based mysteries." —Stephen King

“Once again Harper proves that she is peerless in creating an avalanche of suspense with intimate, character-driven set pieces...Harper’s legions of fans will exult in reading Exiles.”
—David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author

FROM NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AND AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR JANE HARPER COMES EXILES, A CAPTIVATING MYSTERY ABOUT A MISSING MOTHER

Federal Investigator Aaron Falk is on his way to a small town deep in Southern Australian wine country for the christening of an old friend's baby. But mystery follows him, even on vacation.

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of Kim Gillespie's disappearance. One year ago, at a busy town festival on a warm spring night, Kim safely tucked her sleeping baby into her stroller, then vanished into the crowd. No one has seen her since. When Kim's older daughter makes a plea for anyone with information about her missing mom to come forward, Falk and his old buddy Raco can't leave the case alone.

As Falk soaks up life in the lush valley, he is welcomed into the tight-knit circle of Kim’s friends and loved ones. But the group may be more fractured than it seems. Between Falk’s closest friend, the missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge. What would make a mother abandon her child? What happened to Kim Gillespie?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250874863
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	01/31/2023
Series:	Aaron Falk Series , #3
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	700
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jane Harper is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man, and The Survivors. Exiles is her fifth novel. Jane previously worked as a print journalist in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne with her husband, daughter, and son.
Jane Harper is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry, Force of Nature, and The Lost Man. Jane previously worked as a print journalist in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne with her husband, daughter, and son.

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/14/2022

Bestseller Harper’s stellar third outing for Aaron Falk (after 2018’s Force of Nature) takes Falk, of the Australian Federal Police’s financial division, back to the town of Marralee, the site of a popular food and wine festival. A year earlier, Falk was in Marralee when a tragedy occurred. During that year’s festival, 39-year-old Kim Gillespie left the stroller containing her five-week-old daughter in the stroller storage area—and disappeared. Despite frantic searches, Kim never turned up, though her shoe was found in a nearby reservoir, leading to the belief that she drowned there. Falk agrees to revisit the mystery at the behest of Zara, Kim’s teenage daughter, and Greg Raco, a friend of Falk. The inquiry suggests a possible link to another unresolved case—the hit-and-run death of accountant Dean Tozer six years earlier, also coinciding with the Marralee festival. Writing at the top of her game, Harper effectively uses whodunit tropes to explore her characters’ hidden lives. Readers interested in literate and nuanced mysteries will be eager to see more of Falk. 5-city author tour. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"I love Jane Harper's Australia-based mysteries." —Stephen King

“Once again Harper proves that she is peerless in creating an avalanche of suspense with intimate, character-driven set pieces that are as exquisitely engineered as the inner workings of a Steinway. Harper’s legions of fans will exult in reading Exiles.”
—David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Another all-consuming mystery from Harper...Fans will relish Falk’s intuitive “spider sense” moments here, and they will be amazed at the simultaneously shocking and tender ending.”
—Booklist, starred review

“With this book, Harper may well have given her legions of readers exactly what they have been waiting for: a beautifully observed crime novel about regional life featuring the reticent and endearing federal policeman, Aaron Falk...Quietly and inevitably, the secrets and deceptions are unraveled as Falk finds himself deftly woven into the weft of this small community. In Exiles, Falk may at last have come home.”
—Sydney Morning Herald

“Stellar…Writing at the top of her game, Harper effectively uses whodunit tropes to explore her characters’ hidden lives. Readers interested in literate and nuanced mysteries will be eager to see more of Falk.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“An outstanding crime novel, rich in mystery and atmosphere and full of heart. Utterly immersive, captivating and beautifully written; I lost myself completely within its pages and was bereft when it ended. Jane Harper is a rare jewel of an author and Exiles deserves to be huge. It blew me away. It's my book of the year so far.”
—C L Taylor, Sunday Times bestselling author

“Jane Harper has once again produced an ingenious, moving and hugely satisfying mystery. This is crime writing perfection.”
— C. M. Ewan, #1 internationally bestselling author

“Fine writing and addictive storytelling.”
—Ann Cleeves, New York Times bestselling author

“A truly wonderful read. Rich in detail, landscape and character and deeply satisfying on all levels.”
—Sarah Hilary, award-winning author

“The kind of crime novel you move into rather than just reading it - a wholly absorbing set of mysteries, a cast of characters that feels entirely real and a setting so vivid you can practically smell the breeze through the bushland. Aaron Falk is the still center of the novel, a quiet presence like no other in crime fiction. Exceptional in every way.”
—Jane Casey, author of the Maeve Kerrigan novels

From the Publisher

10/01/2022

In Harper's third Aaron Falk series installment (after The Dry and Force of Nature), the detective is with Greg Raco's family in the wine country of South Australia, having been invited to attend the christening of Raco's son, who is also Falk's godson. But the gathering has a dark cloud over it, as one member of the family, Kim Gillespie, disappeared the previous summer from the local food and wine festival, leaving her infant daughter alone in her stroller. It is widely believed that Kim took her own life by jumping into the local reservoir; her body was never found, though one of her shoes was. Kim's teenage daughter, Zoe, has never believed that version of events, and Zoe and her friend Joel, who lost his father several years earlier in an unsolved hit-and-run accident, hope to find more information by making an appeal at this year's festival. Falk gets pulled into the investigation, making a connection with the earlier case as well. There is no shortage of suspects, motives or inexplicable evidence, giving Falk plenty of work to do, and the eventual answers to the deaths are both very believable and deeply sad. VERDICT A strong entry in a series best read in order.—Stephanie Klose

Library Journal