Exiles, by Jane Harper

The mother of a six-week-old baby, Kim Gillespie disappeared on opening night of a food festival in South Australia’s wine country. Presumed drowned in a nearby reservoir, her body was never recovered. Australian Federal Police officer Aaron Falk was there at the time for a christening, but couldn’t help solve the mystery. Returning a year later for the long-postponed christening Aaron finds himself drawn into a close-knit group of family and friends, who may be hiding some deep dark secrets. This third and final outing of Aaron Falk has a very different regional setting from the previous two, which obscures rather than underpins the central mystery. The story of the investigation is interspersed with substantial flashbacks that illuminate Falk’s involvement with the story and its protagonists. A satisfying whodunnit, there is rather too much detailed exposition after the killer is revealed. An unlikely fairytale ending comes with resolution of a subplot mystery that has been well-telegraphed, making it a little anticlimactic. It is nevertheless a satisfying farewell to Falk and it will be interesting to see if it makes a trilogy of films as well as books.