Exiles by Jane Harper

A mother disappears from a busy festival on a warm spring night.

Her baby lies alone in the pram, waiting for a return that never comes.

A year later, Kim Gillespie’s absence still casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations on a rare break from work is federal investigator Aaron Falk, who begins to suspect that all is not as it seems.

As he looks into Kim’s case, long-held secrets and resentments begin to come to the fore, secrets that show that her community is not as close as it appears.

Falk will have to tread carefully if he is to expose the dark fractures at its heart, but sometimes it takes an outsider to get to the truth…

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I’m a huge fan of Jane Harper’s and have been since reading her debut novel, The Dry, way back in 2017 (although I’m struggling to believe that it was seven years ago!)  While Exiles is the third of her novels to feature Aaron Falk, this novel can be read as a standalone without the reader missing out on anything essential.  Having said that, both The Dry and its sequel, Force of Nature, are superb, and I highly recommend reading both if you’re at all tempted. 

Going into Exiles, some of my fellow bloggers mentioned that the pacing is a little slow.  Reader – they were not wrong.  Harper takes her time with this one, introducing the characters and their backstories whilst setting the scene of Kim’s disappearance.  As with her other novels, Exiles has a small-town setting, and it’s something that Harper does really well – most of these characters have known each other for years and have grown up together with all the ups and downs that that entails.  Their backgrounds are convoluted and intertwined, and it seems that Falk – an outsider in town for a Christening – can take a more neutral position and perhaps see events more clearly than those whose perceptions are biased because of what they (think they) know.

Kim’s disappearance is immediately intriguing, not least for there being very few clues as to what happened to her.  One year earlier, she disappeared from the local festival, leaving her six-week-old baby in her pram.  Those searching immediately afterwards found a shoe in the vicinity, but there have been no further traces of Kim, and no clue as to why she disappeared and whether or not that was her own choice.  This novel is set a year later with the opening night of that same festival looming, and questions are being asked, and it’s hoped that an appeal – both to the locals and those from out of town who might have seen something a year earlier – may start to provide some answers to those affected by Kim’s disappearance.

Falk remains a great character and one that I’m always happy to revisit.  On leave for a Christening at which he’ll become a godfather, he tries not to get involved in mystery of Kim’s disappearance, but can’t quite help himself, understanding that her family and friends want answers and the closure that they bring.  While he does work for the police, missing persons aren’t really his thing – he’s more a “follow the money” kind of cop – but he does have some insights, and his perspective as a relative outsider adds value. This novel also gets a little more personal for Falk as a romantic opportunity presents itself – an element that I’m not usually all that concerned about, but that I really enjoyed in this novel. 

While Exiles doesn’t have a twist and a turn on every page, I found the slow burn approach gripping.  Kim’s disappearance is unusual, and my attention was hooked from the beginning as I wanted to know what had happened to her.  While I did have my suspicions as to how things might play out, I certainly didn’t work out all of the small details, and I felt that the plot worked well to keep the reader on tenterhooks without revealing its secrets too soon.  I also like the slight ambiguity with which the author ends the novel – there’s scope for additional Falk novels, and yet this would also form a satisfying conclusion if Harper chose to end his story here.  I’ll be sure to read whatever Harper publishes next, whether that is a Falk novel or something else. 

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Also by Jane Harper:

Aaron Falk:

1. The Dry
2. Force of Nature

Standalones:

• The Lost Man
• The Survivors