Harper Jane
The Survivors
Little,Brown, London 2020
The Australian author Jane Harper chooses the sets for her thrillers carefully. After the desert it is now the South coast of the continent, with nothing in between Australia and Antarctica.
There is nothing idyllic about this coast with its fierce winds from the South and the rugged coastline. Again the hero Kieran, his wife and little daughter are confronted with Kieranīs past, when they return to his home town Evelyn Bay to visit his ailing mother.
When a young woman is found drowned on the beach, the community instinctively turns to the past, when in a terrible storm Kieranīs brother and a friend were killed in a shipwreck and Kieranīs then girlfriend disappeared forever.
Harper describes the torments Kieran has to go through in great details, with the coastal caves and the sea taking center stage. A good, if sometimes lengthy read.