Last One Out
The gripping and atmospheric Australian small-town mystery from the bestselling author of The Dry
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4.4 • 14 Ratings
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller
'A book to get lost in' Ann Cleeves
'Utterly brilliant. I could not put it down' Marian Keyes
Five years ago, Sam Crowley vanished on his twenty-first birthday. The only clues were his footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses.
One set in. One set out.
Now, his mother Ro returns to the dying town of Carralon Ridge. The community is a ghost of its former self, fractured by the encroaching mining operation and years of unspoken grief.
Ro is looking for answers. But in a town where everyone is leaving, the few who remain are guarding closely held secrets.
In this disappearing landscape, can Ro find the truth before the dust settles forever?
'I was glued to it for days' – Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
'An exquisite lament for a lost son, a lost marriage and a lost town with a dark mystery at its heart' – Daily Mail
'The drama grows to a spectacular crescendo that will leave you gasping’ Daily Express
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A woman returns to a deteriorating Australian mining town five years after her son's disappearance in this satisfying slow-burn from Harper (Exiles). The once close-knit community of Carralon Ridge has thinned in recent years, with most residents either fleeing or contemplating buyouts from the ever-expanding Lentzer coal mine. Rowena "Ro" Crowley's estranged husband, Griff, still works for Lentzer, though he spends most of his time grieving the couple's son, Sam, who vanished five years earlier while conducting in-person interviews for a research paper about the socioeconomic impact of the mine's expansion. Ro moved away from Carralon Ridge soon after, but she's come back to be with her family on the fifth anniversary of Sam's disappearance. When she arrives, the community is abuzz about the death of the local pub owner. His suspicious demise and the ensuing dispute over his property rights fuel gossip and speculation about Lentzer's business practices; soon, Ro starts to suspect that the company might be hiding details about Sam's disappearance. Harper's evocative portrayal of a decaying landscape and the grief-burdened people who live there provides the narrative with simmering tension. It's a solid outing.
