#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 Hepworth, are having their moment. For me, a new title by Harper is always welcome. This one did not disappoint.
The setting of this book is an almost ghost town. While reading I could visualize the landscape both in nature and as a place of vanished dreams and unoccupied homes. It is, itself, a major character in the novel in my opinion.
Readers get to know Ro, her husband, her daughter and her missing (dead?) son Sam in these pages. (I won’t say more so as not to give anything away about Sam.) Knowledge about all of them comes from both the present and the past. I so wanted and dreaded finding out what happened to Sam.
I was immersed in getting to know all of those around Ro including family and her friends along with everyone who lived in their small community. Watch for example the story lines about Warren, the teens in the community and many others. Their lives have been disrupted with disregard by a mining company. What it means to hang on or lose/let go of one’s home is a dilemma vividly brought to life in these pages.
As noted, Sam’s story is important but events that affect other characters in the story also very much draw the reader’s attention. This leads to a more complex work.
Anyone who likes Australian crime fiction will, I think, enjoy this book. I recommend it most highly.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for this title. All opinions are my own.
Pub date: 23 April 2026
Post first published on 14 February 2026
Description:
from the publisher
An unforgettable small-town mystery with huge emotional resonance from International No. 1 bestselling author Jane Harper, perfect for fans of Val McDermid, Chris Whitaker and Elly Griffiths.
‘Utterly brilliant . . . I could not put it down’ – Marian Keyes
‘A book to get lost in’ – Ann Cleeves
‘Heartbreaking and wonderful’ Andrea Mara
‘I was glued to it for days’ Jennie Godfrey
‘Jane Harper delivers unbearable tension’ Val McDermid
He had been here, that was clear from the marks in the dust. And he had been alone.
In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his twenty-first birthday.
Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out.
Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam’s disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts.
But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain. If the truth is to be found in that town, does it lie among them?
Last One Out is a hugely atmospheric mystery from the author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man, The Survivors and Exiles.
From the Publisher
Joyce's mystery and fiction book reviews with some non-fiction too! 