Bestseller Harper's stellar third outing for Aaron Falk (after 2018's Force of Nature) takes Falk, of the Australian Federal Police's financial division, back to the town of Marralee, the site of a popular food and wine festival. A year earlier, Falk was in Marralee when a tragedy occurred. During that year's festival, 39-year-old Kim Gillespie left the stroller containing her five-week-old daughter in the stroller storage area--and disappeared. Despite frantic searches, Kim never turned up, though her shoe was found in a nearby reservoir, leading to the belief that she drowned there. Falk agrees to revisit the mystery at the behest of Zara, Kim's teenage daughter, and Greg Raco, a friend of Falk. The inquiry suggests a possible link to another unresolved case--the hit-and-run death of accountant Dean Tozer six years earlier, also coinciding with the Marralee festival. Writing at the top of her game, Harper effectively uses whodunit tropes to explore her characters' hidden lives. Readers interested in literate and nuanced mysteries will be eager to see more of Falk. 5-city author tour. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House. (Jan.)

Federal Agent Aaron Falk makes his third appearance (following Force of Nature, 2018) in another all-consuming mystery from Harper, who has introduced millions of readers worldwide to the land down under and its many landscapes, from drought-stricken towns to dense forests. This time readers find themselves in Australia's lush wine-growing region. Falk is visiting his old friend Raco, who, like himself, still bears burn scars from the events described in The Dry (2017). Raco's brother owns a winery in the Marralee Valley, and the annual food and wine festival is underway. The previous year a woman disappeared during the festival, leaving behind her infant, carefully tucked up in blankets in her carriage. The only trace of the missing woman was her sneaker, found in a nearby reservoir. It was written off as a suicide, but Falk forms his own suspicions, especially after learning of an unresolved hit-and-run of a local man in the same location. Adding to the chorus of warning bells, Falk notes a certain hollowness at the core of the allegedly tight-knit group to which both victims belonged. Fans will relish Falk's intuitive "spider sense" moments here, and they will be amazed at the simultaneously shocking and tender ending.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Harper's acclaim is growing in print and on screen. The Dry was adapted into a film released in 2021, and a sequel based on Force of Nature is in production.

In Harper's third Aaron Falk series installment (after The Dry and Force of Nature), the detective is with Greg Raco's family in the wine country of South Australia, having been invited to attend the christening of Raco's son, who is also Falk's godson. But the gathering has a dark cloud over it, as one member of the family, Kim Gillespie, disappeared the previous summer from the local food and wine festival, leaving her infant daughter alone in her stroller. It is widely believed that Kim took her own life by jumping into the local reservoir; her body was never found, though one of her shoes was. Kim's teenage daughter, Zoe, has never believed that version of events, and Zoe and her friend Joel, who lost his father several years earlier in an unsolved hit-and-run accident, hope to find more information by making an appeal at this year's festival. Falk gets pulled into the investigation, making a connection with the earlier case as well. There is no shortage of suspects, motives or inexplicable evidence, giving Falk plenty of work to do, and the eventual answers to the deaths are both very believable and deeply sad. VERDICT A strong entry in a series best read in order.--Stephanie Klose