{"id":8825,"date":"2021-02-09T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8825"},"modified":"2021-02-08T19:48:15","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T00:48:15","slug":"the-survivors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8825","title":{"rendered":"The Survivors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Jane Harper \u2013 Award-winning Australian crime writer Jane Harper has done it again. Her Harper\u2019s latest crime mystery,<\/strong> now out in hardcover, revisits the perils of small-town life so expertly deconstructed in The Lost Man<\/em> (audiobook reviewed here<\/a>) and her first novel, The Dry<\/em>, recently released in its film version (trailer<\/a>), with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (15 reviews).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For The Survivors<\/em>, the setting is the village of Evelyn Bay in coastal Tasmania. Kieran Elliott, has reluctantly returned to there to help his mother pack up the family home. His father has Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and Kieran\u2019s mother, Verity, needs help. I wondered at the naming of this character. Are we to suppose that Verity is a reliable truth-teller?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kieran\u2019s older brother Finn was one of the storm\u2019s victims, along with Toby, older brother of Kieran\u2019s friend Sean. Kieran blames himself for the tragedy and many locals do too. He\u2019s borne an agonizingly heavy burden since the tragedy and every bit of shoreline, every sound and smell and photo in the family home bring it all back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The killer storm was much worse than expected, and Kieran, then 18, was not as cautious as he should have been. He was down in the shoreline caves, romancing the beautiful Olivia, ignoring the strength of the incoming tide that would fill the caves, drowning anyone inside. When he and Olivia finally tried to leave, their exit was almost cut off, and he put out a call for help. Finn and Toby headed out to rescue him, but their boat capsized, and they were lost. Kieran and Olivia swam and climbed, barely reaching safety. Olivia\u2019s younger sister Gabby was seen on the shore rocks around that same time; her body was never found. In a small town, so much loss is hard to get past. And harder to forgive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olivia now lives on the beach with her tiresome summer roommate Bronte, and is dating Kieran\u2019s long-time friend Ash. This tight circle of friends welcomes him. But Kieran picks up persistent hostility from Toby\u2019s son, among others. Then Bronte\u2019s body is found on the beach and a new round of recriminations begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Harper has nicely paced this novel, with each bit that is removed or clarified providing new insights into the town\u2019s tragedies. I especially like how she develops such strong characters and realistic dialog. You understand them, yet they retain the capacity to surprise. They seem to be involved in real relationships, stretched a bit taut at times, but these times are demanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harper has received much praise for the quality of her writing, and this novel does not disappoint. It seems a good many compelling stories are bottled up inside her, and I\u2019m grateful she shares them with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jane Harper \u2013 Award-winning Australian crime writer Jane Harper has done it again. Her Harper\u2019s latest crime mystery, now out in hardcover, revisits the perils of small-town life so expertly deconstructed in The Lost Man (audiobook reviewed here) and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Survivors - Jane Harper has another winner set in the antipodes--Tasmania this time, as guilt and loss work their way through the residents of coastal Evelyn Bay. ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,366,1749,632,126,785],"tags":[1823,1824],"class_list":["post-8825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-drama","category-international","category-police","category-reading-2","category-tragedy","tag-jane-harper","tag-the-survivors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2il","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8827,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8825\/revisions\/8827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}