Last One Out by Jane Harper-Audio book review-Narrated by Angeline Armstrong

#LastOneOut #NetGalley

Jane Harper is one of my favorite Australian mystery authors. As a recent article in the Australian Women’s Weekly noted, she and others including Dervla McTiernan and Sally Hepworthare having their moment. For me, a new title by Harper is always welcome.

The narrator of this title has the Australian accent that lends veracity to the narration. She drew me right into this story and its characters. I so wanted and dreaded finding out what happened to Ro’s son Sam who had disappeared. I was immersed in getting to know all of those around Ro including friends and family members.

Sam’s story is important but other events that affect characters in the story also very much draw the listener’s attention. This leads to a more complex work.

The setting of this book is an almost ghost town. The narration allowed me to visualize the landscape both in nature and as a place of vanished dreams and unoccupied homes.

Anyone who likes Australian crime fiction will, I think, enjoy this audio book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this title. All opinions are my own.

Release date: 14 April 2026

Description:

from the publisher

From the New York Times bestselling author of Exiles and The Dry comes a captivating new novel set in a modern ghost town.

Carralon Ridge, a once vibrant village in rural New South Wales, has become a shell of itself, its houses and buildings bought up and left to rot by the mining company operating at its borders. A decade into its slow death, surrounded by industrial noise and swathed in thick layers of dust, the skeletal town is all but abandoned, with just a handful of residents clinging onto what remains.

After years of scorning those who left the Ridge behind as it fell into ruin, Ro never imagined she’d become one of them. But everything changed when she lost her son. Five years ago, Sam vanished while visiting during a break from college, leaving behind a rental car with his belongings inside. Sam had loved Carralon Ridge, and had been working on an oral history of the town to preserve its legacy before it vanished altogether. It wasn’t long after his disappearance that the rest of the family began to crumble away too.

But when Ro returns to Carralon Ridge to be with her husband and daughter on the anniversary of Sam’s disappearance, she begins to suspect that something important was overlooked in his case. Because while nothing can stop Carralon Ridge from dying, someone seems to want to make sure that its secrets die with it.