Review: The Dry

There's nothing about the title or even the cover of this book that would jump out at you and make you want to read it. I mean, when the word "dry" is in the title, you'd expect that it would be just that. But, the description of the book (and the fact that it was one of only 30 titles or so available in the tiny book section of the store in the Oakland airport) made me look past the title to a story that was mostly fast-paced and interesting.

I bought this book because I couldn't stand the idea of a two hour flight with nothing to read. I ended up falling asleep on the flight anyway, but before that, I moved quickly through nearly 100 pages. The setup and pace in those opening chapters had me thinking I'd finish the book in a couple of days. But, the pace slowed quite a bit and, for 100 pages or so, the title lived up to its name.

Let me backtrack.

This debut novel is set in a small town in Australia. They may live on other side of the globe, but small town folks are small town folks and their drama and their deep, dark secrets transcend geography. The book opens with the discovery of a terrible tragedy; a man is found dead in his truck of an apparent suicide and his wife and young son are brutally murdered in their home. Only the baby survives. The town immediately believes the man could no longer handle the pressure of farming in what has been a years-long drought. They think he snapped, killed his family, then himself. That man's old friend returns from the big city for the funeral and because he's a federal agent, the dead man's family wants him to investigate, believing there must be more to the story.

As he begins his investigation, he's revisiting ghosts of his past. Layer by layer, the author reveals the secrets that have haunted this small town. She introduces characters and backstories that have the reader questioning everything and everyone, all leading up to a somewhat surprising conclusion and a potentially catastrophic climax (*note: catastrophic climax would be an awesome name for an album. Don't steal it.) 

The story was compelling, the conclusion was surprising, but still believable. It's a decent book. The only problem was that some of those red herring tangents took up too much time and space. I like following a thread even when it turns out not to be significant, but this book spent a little too much time on too many of those storylines. I think if this book was about 75 pages shorter, I could more enthusiastically recommend it. As is? I'll let Larry David tell ya.