This was my favorite of Harper's books. She does a masterful job of setting a strong sense of place, but I enjoyed the characters and the mystery in this one especially. I felt like it moved a little faster, and I was consistently intrigued. And narrator has definitely become the voice of the main character. Bravo!

I listened to the audiobook. While there is nothing wrong with Stephen Shanahan's narration, I do think this book may be better when actually read (as opposed to listened to)
There are two reasons-
1. There are a LOT of characters. All but three of them are new. It is a lot to keep track of. And you meet them all nearly at once. By the end it was fine, but early on, it was hard to keep track of people. Maybe it is just me, but I find it easier to keep track with print versions rather than audio.
2. Like Jane Harper's other books, this randomly flashes back. I am fine with flashbacks, but when listening to an audiobook, if there isn't a significant break (preferably a new chapter), it is harder to keep track of. I have not seen this in print, but I am assuming there is at least a large page break to differentiate the flashbacks. There is nothing in the audiobook to notate this, other than the actual written words. Again, maybe it is me, but it takes me a minute to process the change. So I find this frustrating.

Now, the book. The two things mentioned above were already bothering me. Then we find out what actually happened to Kim. I about quit the book right there. Way too predictable.

I liked the story of Dean, Gemma, and Josh much better. I wish that had been the main focus. And while I accurately predicted what happened with Dean, it was not the expected, easy storyline. There were enough clues to figure it out, but it also wasn't obvious, predictable, and overdone (like Kim's story).

Through most of this book, I was also annoyed by Faulk in general. He is supposed to be solving financial crimes, yet in every book he randomly finds himself in the middle of a non-financial criminal investigation all over the country. Seriously? This does not happen in real life. I have been waiting for him to have a career change for several books now as financial crimes doesn't seem like it is where he wants to be.

The cover is gorgeous. I just wish the story held up as well. It isn't bad, it just had too many annoying things to rate it any higher.

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Fantastic story: deep, melancholy, emotional and gripping all at once. I loved the focus on the setting, it felt like a real place, but also the family stuff, which was raw and moving. I love this author's works.

Set in Southern Australia, Exiles is the third installment (and I believe final!) in the Aaron Falk series.
Aaron has returned to to Maralee to act as godfather in the christening of a friend's child.
Sadly, another child's mother, Kim disappeared year ago at the Maralee Wine Festival, leaving the infant alone in her pram beneath the Ferris Wheel. At this year's festival, a plea is sent out by local police and the family for anyone who remembers anything to speak to police or family in hopes to put a resolution to the mystery of her disappearance.
Kim's teenage daughter, Zara, is insistent that her mother, despite possibly suffering from post partum depression, would never have taken her own life, or abandoned them.
As Aaron reacquaints himself with old friends and the details of the case he begins to put together pieces that are perhaps best seen from someone with a more outside perspective.
Throw in the secondary mystery of a hit and run death about five year prior, and a potential romance for Aaron, and there is a lot happening in this novel.
It all comes together very quickly, and satisfying, in the end - though I didn't see much of it coming!
The narration was excellent- very well done.

Once again I didn't realize this was part of a series until part way through the book, however it was good as a stand alone. Enjoyed the intricate plotline and characters.

At a busy festival site on a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her pram, her mother vanishing into the crowds.

A year on, Kim Gillespie’s absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems.

Between Falk’s closest friend, a missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge.

An outstanding novel, a brilliant mystery and a heart-pounding read from the author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors.

Listening to this audiobook was a little slow at the beginning but it didn't take too long for it to suck me in! This is the only book in the Aaron Falk series that I have read, it is also the first from this author. The story was well-developed and left you wondering until the end. "We see what we expect to see" the story has not one but two mysteries to solve, as well as a little bit of romance. While I feel I was able to follow the story easily I feel like I would be more committed to the characters if I would have read the previous books prior to this one. Overall this is a good book and I would definitely read more from this author.

I jumped on the Jane Harper bandwagon pretty quickly after she released The Dry and ever since I have enjoyed what she writes, especially when it comes to her Aaron Falk series.

Exiles is the third book in this series and I was able to read it early via audiobook. Now, I will say that if I had the ebook or print option available, I probably would have switched over to that. There are a lot of characters in this one and then sometimes they are called by their last names instead of first and it just got muddled for me at times. Also, it took me about 30% to get used to the Australian accent of the narrator but I do appreciate that it was an Australian narrator since that is where this series takes place.

As far as the story / mystery goes, I felt like it was done well. A bit of a slower burn while all the puzzle pieces fit together, but I'm used to that with Harper's writing so I knew what I was getting in to.

I liked that she humanized Falk a little more in this one, too. You got to see more of his personal side vs just his work side and I think that really added to the storyline.

Pros: I have read all of Jane Harper’s books and was excited to get back into the Aaron Faulk series because The Dry was great. Fans of her books will like this one because she is a dependable author. I was excited that I did not guess the whodunnit before it was revealed in book. I listened to this book on audiobook and enjoy that the same narrator reads all of Jane Harper’s books.

Cons: None really. I think this book does exactly what it sets out to do. For me, three stars = I liked it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read this book.

This book was fantastic! I really like watching the characters grow and change for the better. I am now going to and read Jane Harper's other books in this series, obviously! I love the whole large family that has taken Faulk in and made him a part of it. Also, fuck Kim's husband! What a creeper!

cold-case, wine-country, Australia, Australian-author, law-enforcement, series, thriller, due-diligence, mystery, small-town, relationships, domestic-violence, disappearance *****

The woman disappeared from a festival over a year ago and the investigation hit a dead end. While in the area, Falk (a federal investigator) and his pal are intrigued and set out to dig deep into the personal aspects of this case (and another as well) with meticulous due diligence. The publisher's blurb was a good hook and reeled me in sharply. This is a good read that had me doing awful household tasks just so I had an excuse to listen to this book!
I'm glad that voice actor Stephen Shanahan was chosen as narrator because his speech is clear, and he works hard to differentiate the multiplicity of characters
I requested and received a free temporary audiobook from Macmillan Audio via NetGalley. Thank you!

Thanks to NetGalley & MacMillan Audio for providing an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had read Harper's The Survivors a couple of years ago, but this was my first Aaron Falk book. From what I could tell, there is no need to read the series in order and I didn't feel lost in the timeline at all.

Harper's books are complicated and very character-heavy; this one is no exception. There are so many characters that I sometimes had to stop for a moment to remember which character was which. The fact that one character was referred to by his last name, while there were also two brothers of his ... with the same last name, was a teeny bit confusing, but I eventually got it.

Kim Gillespie has been missing for exactly a year. Aaron is visiting friends who have asked him to stand as their child's godfather, and the christening was postponed the previous year due to Kim's disappearance (she is the friendly ex of the child's uncle). There are no leads, and it feels a bit like the local police aren't doing much. Throw into the mix an accident in which a man was thrown into the sea off the cliff area when he was walking his dog and hit by a presumably drunk driver - that case is also unsolved, 6 years on.

Harper takes her time ensconcing Falk into his surroundings. His visit is lengthy, and he gets stuck in with his friend's circle of friends, reconnecting with a woman he met the previous year before the christening was cancelled; she's the widow of the hit-and-run victim.

There are times when it feels like there is so much information going into the story that's just going to dissolve into background noise and is really there to create red herrings (which it successfully does! I was thrown for a loop when all was revealed). If you're into the story, it's not a problem. For my enjoyment, the book could've had 75 fewer pages and I would have been happy. Hardcore Falk fans might want more, especially since there are lots of plot upsets in the latter pages of the story.

Solid entry; 3.5 stars rounded up. Stephen Shanahan could surely do a better job of discerning between characters, but his voice acting is good and he does a nice job with the dialog in terms of emotion and realism.

I was so excited to listen to this audiobook since I read the first two books of this series and loved them, but yikes! This book was not like the others at all, minus Aaron Falk being the only similarity.

I struggled so hard through this book. It was tedious and exhausting. I honestly think 100 pages of this book could be pulled out and the reader wouldn’t lose any actual content. I tried to see the value in mundane activity, but I just couldn’t do it. Nothing happens until the book is almost done. There are pretty much zero clues until the end so it didn’t feel like mystery book that the reader could solve, minus your gut feeling on who the culprits were.

It was fun listening to the narrator’s accent, but he pronounced so many words differently throughout the book, I was confused on which character he was talking about. I didn’t know Falk could be pronounced 10 different ways. Also, I found out I do not enjoy listening to a narrator breathe in constantly. I think this book would have better more enjoyable reading it vs listening to it.

Thanks NetGalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

I received an audio ARC of this novel.

The story: The story was fascinating, and had a good cast of characters to give some more insight into the lives of those affected by the disappearance of Kim. We also get a lot of backstory about Aaron himself, which is a nice change from other cop procedurals.

The narration: I found listening to this audiobook to be difficult because of 2 things: 1) the writing style tended to stop with a character mid-sentence, and then give more background, which was hard to adjust to when listening to the audiobook. 2) I found it hard to differentiate between characters because the intonation didn't change as much as i am used to.

2.5 unhurried stars, rounded up to 3

Slow moving, not much plot (a young mom in Australia disappears). The novel is character driven, but if I hadn’t known Aaron Falk from previous books, I probably wouldn’t have finished. If you are looking for an ‘unhurried’ mystery, Exiles should satisfy.

Falk develops a bit of a romance, there is a mystery about what happened to a woman at a festival a year ago. The secondary ‘mystery’ involves a hit and run pedestrian killing by a drunk driver is summarily wrapped up at the end.

The narration by Stephen Shanahan was excellent. It took a chapter or two to get used to the rhythm of his wonderful Aussie accent. Characters’ voices were clear. The inflections used to express emotions were particularly good.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I've enjoyed getting another Aaron Falk story.
Harper writes a good mystery!

I just reviewed Exiles by Jane Harper. #NetGalley

While I am glad that Harper chose to do one more installment on this series, I am still bummed it’s the end of Aaron’s storyline. I like Aaron and I’ve enjoyed this series and it was nice to see Greg back in Aaron’s story; Greg is a cop from Aaron’s hometown and was in the first book, The Dry. Harper is a good writer and a wonderful storyteller.

The book summary is kind of vague and I actually kind of like that for this series. This is unusual for me because for any other type of book, I want as much info as possible in order to determine if a book will interest me. Basically, the book summary just lays out the storyline the first half of the book: Aaron visiting his buddy, Greg, and staying at the vineyard of Greg’s brother (Charlie) for the Marralee wine festival and the christening of Greg’s baby son, who is Aaron’s godson.

There are also secondary storylines; one about the budding romantic interest between Aaron and a woman (Gemma), who lives in Marralee, that he met one night, 16 months earlier when she was in Melbourne for business. Then there is the also the renewed interest in a six-year-old car accident that killed Gemma’s husband, Dean, and that Dean’s 18yr old son is obsessed with. It’s also the one-year anniversary of a missing woman, Kim, who is the mother of Charlie’s 17yr old daughter, Zara, who organizes a tribute to her mother at the wine festival.

As the outsider, and an AFP investigator, Aaron finds himself seeking out info to organize what he knows and doesn’t know about Kim, and her disappearance, and the townspeople who he thought they knew her best. The story flips back and forth between present day and a year ago along with a few passages of some of the childhood memories of Kim from various people who knew her.

In the second half of the story, an off-the-cuff, Freudian slip from a relative has several people second guessing what they actually knew about Kim and how she had changed over the years. It also begins to send Aaron and Greg in another direction in their own personal investigation into Kim’s disappearance. The final part of the story brings in two new narrators with a major reveal that results in a shocking ending for the primary storyline. Aaron wraps up the other storylines, including his own HEA and a satisfying ending to the series.

I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed the narrator’s voice. Some narrators are awful to listen to, some to the point where I turn off the audiobook and just read the ebook. Fortunately, I can do that with my Kindle Unlimited subscription. However, Stephen Shanahan, and his lovely Aussie accent, were very pleasant to listen to when I worked out in the mornings.

I want to thank NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

@NetGalley @MacmillanAudio @Exiles

Jane Harper has a hit on her hands. Her novel was a slow burn that built subtly and quietly. You are drawn in and before you know it, you cannot but this book down (or stop listening in my case). I found this story to be irresistible.

Aaron Falk is on holiday visiting friends in an Australian wine region. His trip coincides with the one year anniversary of Kim Gillespie’s disappearance. Aaron slowly gets pulled into investigating by Kim’s 17 year old daughter, Zara.

Things I loved about this book:

Characters - This is a character driven novel and I am here for it. Harper is so skilled at etching out the essence of a personality. As the story continues, they become very vivid and very distinct like old friends (or like friends you wish you had).

Sense of place - How I wish I was in the Marralee valley! You can see the grapes hanging off the the vines, see the rolling hills, hear the tractor out in the field behind the house and you can taste the wine. Harper has created a beautiful wine town we all want to visit.

Story structure - This novel is really the tale of two mysteries. They are both crafted so well. Yes, there are some traditional tropes used, but with such a deft hand that it doesn’t feel trite. You are misdirected so many times and it is a delight to be lead astray.

I have not read the first two Aaron Falk books. The “mystery” was a standalone, so no issue with picking this up out of sequence. But, I am sure I missed out on character development that carried over from earlier books.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan for the advanced copy.

Very clever! Loved the characters and the unexpectedness of the storyline. I listened to the audiobook in 2 days, could not put it down.

Jane Harper is the queen of atmospheric slow-burn mysteries. In true Harper fashion, EXILES boasts a strong sense of place with well-drawn characters. The story is set not only in a small Australian town, but a vineyard, which makes for an amazingly atmospheric locale.

Aaron Falk is drawn to Southern Australia wine country to investigate a year-old case of a missing woman who left her baby alone at a festival. With more than one mystery to solve, Falk seeks to unearth long buried small-town secrets.

EXILES is the third book in the Aaron Falk series, but just because this mystery can stand alone doesn’t mean you should sleep on the opportunity to read book #1, THE DRY. Take this as a personal challenge: read the first chapter and tell me you aren’t immediately sucked into the story. Knowing Falk’s history does enhance the third installment as we see him become vulnerable in ways we haven’t before.

EXILES makes for a fantastic audiobook. Who can pass up an Australian narrator? Stephen Shanahan has narrated many of Harper’s books and really does them justice. Readers who enjoy a slow burn mystery with well-crafted characters won’t want to miss EXILES.

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: January 31, 2023

Many thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an ALC in exchange for an honest review. Review will be posted to www.instagram.com/kellyhook.readsbooks in advance of publication date.

Interesting mystery. Love the Australian setting. Nice to the see the main characters end up in a happier place this time.