Retro Review: The Dry
/When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.
4 stars. You’ve heard the story a thousand times: detective with a dark past returns to his small hometown and ends up solving a murder. The usual. Oh, and don’t forget secrets. Secrets are revealed.
This is exceptional, though. It’s a neat little thriller with strong characters and a transporting atmosphere. It’s bleak and brutal but well-balanced by the protagonist’s determined good intentions. Harper also captures an overly done setting - suffering small town - in a way that lends to the story rather than drowning it in tropes and archetypes. And beyond that, The Dry is a true page-turner - I almost wish I hadn’t correctly identified the killer before the big reveal. It’s super satisfying and intense.
I don’t know why, but I expected something amateur-ish and rambling from this book. I was truly and pleasantly surprised and am impressed with the writing as a whole. It did remind me of Sharp Objects and Into the Water and Sycamore and other similar books, but this one really crackled on its own. It was concise, well-paced, dark and fresh. I will absolutely and quite happily read on to the next book.