“She was gone before she was gone”.

Officer Aaron Falk finds himself back in a small town and gets quickly caught up in a missing persons case from a year before. Kim Gillespie has been missing for the last year and the last sign of her was her baby in its stroller at the annual festival.

While many people from Kim’s go hometown think she might have harmed herself, every person and place has its own secrets and mysteries. It’s up to Falk to get past the ideals of picture perfect and discover what’s real in this town.

I really enjoyed the slow-burn of this book and the atmosphere created. As with many books by Jane Harper, you are completely absorbed into the world she has created.

This book has a complex, multilayered plot and flows beautifully. I would recommend this one to any slow-burn mystery fan. You won’t be disappointed!

Aaron Falk returns in Harper’s latest police procedural/mystery set in a small Australian town where a year ago Kim Gillespie disappeared from a wine festival leaving her baby sleeping in a stroller. Kim’s body was never recovered and her older daughter from a previous relationship believes she’s alive. But why would a mother simply abandon her baby? Falk enters the picture that’s dominated by the close-knit extended family each with convoluted connections to Kim. Falk observes the situation and learns of many old romantic relationships and cannot help but feeling something is not quite right with the woman’s disappearance. Harper expertly tags suspicion on each of her characters and the final result is a satisfying solution that will make Agatha Christie fans proud.

Exiles the 3rd installment of the Aaron Falk series is my favorite of the three. I felt like Harper took her closed off, close to the vest detective in Falk and showed more of his vulnerability. I loved it and the mystery itself (a mother goes missing leaving her newborn asleep in a stroller at a fairground) was page turning. The different locations in Australia in each of these books make me want to travel. This time the setting is Australian wine country on a vineyard. It has been added to my bucket list. Thank You to NetGalley, Flatiron books, and Jane Harper for the ARC

How could a new mother abandon her baby?
Did she get kidnapped?
Was she overwhelmed with depression and saw no other option?
In this third installment of the series, Aaron Falk heads to the town of Marralee for a friend's baby baptism and spends his free time trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Kim one year ago.

Like the previous books in this series, the author splits the story into two parts, the mystery itself, and building Falk's character arc.

I didn't think much would come of this renewed search for answers. Any evidence is long gone. As for witnesses, would their testimony even be reliable one year later? But Falk has a knack for finding clues many would overlook. While it takes some time, he does eventually put the pieces together, and it is no way what I expected.

As for Falk, this is the first book that gives him a long overdue romantic plotline. He and his female interest show a lot of maturity in how they explore their relationship and discuss the future. I'm glad we finally got to see this side of him.

Overall, this was a good installment to the series, and I'm interested to see what else is in store for this protagonist.

I read the author's other books. This one took me a while to get into. It is worth it in the end. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

After hearing great things about award-winning Australian author Jane Harper’s writing, I’ve been keen to read her work for quite sometime. So when I saw it was available, I requested an advance copy of Exiles, immediately. It’s the third book in Harper’s Aaron Falk series. I waited a long while to get a copy, but it was well worth it. Exiles does not disappoint.

The book unfolds in three time frames, a week in the present, a year earlier and then three years later at the end. We get multiple points of view, but mostly that of the lead character, Aaron Falk, a seasoned Australian Federal Police (AFP) financial crimes investigator with a calm, unexcitable nature.

Falk returns to Marralee, a small rural town near Adelaide, for the christening of the infant son of Greg and Rita Raco, a couple he is close friends with. Aaron had been in Marralee the previous year (covered in the prologue), when thirty-nine-year-old Kim Gillespie, went missing from the Marralee Valley Food and Wine Festival, an annual event. While her husband was in town having dinner with his parents, Kim Gillespie had disappeared from the festival grounds without a trace, leaving her six week old daughter all alone in a stroller. A festival staffer leaving at the end of the evening had discovered the unattended child, and authorities mounted an unsuccessful search for Gillespie. During the investigation, they discovered the woman suffered from depression and assumed she must have committed suicide by leaping into a reservoir near the back entrance of the festival grounds, but they never found her body. It’s festival time again, a year later, and the woman’s family and friends make an appeal to returning visitors, asking anyone to come forward who might have seen Kim Gillespie or knew something about her movements the previous year, but hadn’t spoken to authorities back then. Since the local police hadn’t definitively resolved the mystery surrounding Gillespie’s disappearance, Falk’s friend, Greg Raco, a law enforcement officer with another agency and the uncle of Gillespie’s teenage daughter, has continued to investigate her disappearance unofficially. And despite Aaron’s reluctance, Raco persuades him to help even though he is on leave for the ATF. While he currently only investigates financial crimes, Falk is a competent and intelligent detective. After talking with various people in the community, he uncovers things about the case no one has yet considered.

While the bulk of the story focuses on Kim Gillespie’s mysterious disappearance without a trace, another thread of the story concerns an unsolved hit-and-run traffic accident that took the life of another popular town resident, Dean Tozer, who had things in common with Gillespie, suggesting the two deaths might relate. But the head of the local police considers the commonalities only the coincidences of small town living where everyone knows each other and has frequent contact. But wait, there’s more—so much more. While the primary driving narrative here is the possibility that Falk can solve the Kate Gillespie mystery and the death of Tozer, Falk is also working to solve some personal issues and working on forming a relationship with Tozer’s widow Gemma, who Falk had met by chance in Melbourne months earlier and had developed an attraction for.

Frankly, Harper’s brilliant imaginative writing blew me away. There is so much going on in the book. Reading it felt almost like playing a game of three-dimensional chess. While the reader senses almost from the start that someone probably murdered both Gillespie and Dean Tozer, Harper doesn’t give us anything solid to go on, but she cleverly encourages and fosters our mere suspicions. In some ways, Tozer’s death becomes more of a mystery than Gillespie’s disappearance. Maybe it was an accident and maybe not. And the deeper we get into the book, the more we size up the cast of characters wondering who might have murdered Kim and Dean and why. The list of suspects grows quickly, even though Harper never gives us any clues that there was foul play in either incident until the very end. I wasn’t even close to solving the whodunit part when Harper, after several twists, finally makes the revelation. And for good measure, she tosses in one last twist after that.

Aaron Falk has a lot of baggage, which he is also working to resolve. And I became more than a little frustrated with him over his indecision and often inept pursuit of Gemma when it seemed clear they should get together. But Falk, a mixture of subtlety and pathos, is a character I liked immediately and seems a real person. Harper also expertly fleshes out the rest of the cast who seem like people I can easily imagine might inhabit rural Australia. All are relatable and I felt like I got to know all the characters well by the end of the book. Unlike other Australian authors I’ve read, who use descriptions of the Australian landscape to establish a sense of place, Harper relies more (at least in this book) on using the Australian manner of speech in both dialogue and inner thoughts of the characters to accomplish that. It’s effective and makes the reader aware the story takes place in Australia, yet perhaps not as effectively as Australian writers, who descriptively transform the sense of place into almost a character in its own right. The Australian Mystery Road movies and television series are good examples of this. And I’ve read several novels where the authors used similar techniques in their prose. Harper’s technique isn’t necessarily bad, just different.

Ultimately, all the plot threads converge and details get spelled out and characters’ motivations get explained, though Harper sustains the overall air of mystery and a satisfying level of suspense until the end. I’m not a reader of the romance genre, but felt the generous helping of a timeless romance that develops between Aaron and Gemma was far and away one of the strongest parts of the story. Especially since their happy relationship stands in such sharp relief to the darker relationship between two other major characters.

The things I’d heard about Jane Harper’s aren’t wrong. She is a fine writer and excellent storyteller who engages the reader and holds your interest. Exiles is a story with twists predicated on major coincidences and reckless decisions, a contrast between light and darkness, and the fallacy of seeing only what one expects to see. I read the book in one sitting, and now of course want to read the first two books in the series. Highly recommended for fans of mystery and suspense.

I received an advance copy of the book for review purposes.

There is something so captivating about Jane Harper's writing. Even when she's only describing the scenery, it's always with an undercurrent of something sinister. You can just feel something is wrong in this place and not just because we know something bad happened to Kim - either she disappeared on her own or someone hurt her. But something ominous is in the air. I suspected several people of wrongdoing while reading this and I was incorrect on all of them. The final twist was shocking but made perfect sense when put together with the rest of the facts. Everything intertwined perfectly and this was a very fitting end to the Aaron Falk trilogy. 5 stars for excellent storytelling, memorable characters, and a tightly woven plot that kept me guessing til the end. Thank you to Flatiron and NetGalley for the DRC in exchange for an honest review.

Well paced and enjoyable, this felt like the last Aaron Falk novel, but we shall see! I do think The Dry (the first book) was the best of the series, but each new mystery was unique and very different from the last. In this story, Aaron is in a new location, visiting friends at a winery where he will soon be the Godfather to their son, whose christening was delayed one year due to the disappearance of a good friend (Kim) of the baby's parents (Greg and Rita)- and the exwife of their neice/cousin. Many are still haunted by her disappearance and her teenage daughter (zara) the most so. As the local Wine Festival opens, memories of the prior year's opening deepen the mystery of where she had gone and why whe was never found.

Jane Harper has come back strong with this third Aaron Falk Australian mystery. A six-year cold case of a hit and run murder, combined with the one year anniversary of the disappearance of a young mom from the same area has him setting his "fresh eyes" upon the cases and the people involved. Exiles is much closer to the style of The Dry than Force of Nature was and i loved every page-turning moment.

Australian federal investigator Aaron Faulk returns to his best friend’s hometown for a christening that was postponed for a year after another guest went missing during the town’s yearly festival leaving a baby behind.
No one saw her leave the festival, and only one of her shoes was found in the nearby reservoir. As the family gathers for the current festival, they plan to hand out flyers to get clues to Kim’s whereabouts. But, as Aaron knows, people see what they want to see and it is usually not the truth.

This is a great, atmospheric series that definitely keeps you guessing until the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A great return to Harper's Aaron Falk series. As always, the setting is strong and Harper develops a wonderfully atmospheric small town. I'm sad to see this series end, but I look forward to anything she writes next.

I ended up DNF this book. I loved the Dry and Forces of Nature. But this was a busy for me. I read 50% and felt like the plot and story was so slow moving. I was not invested enough in the characters to really persevere. I’ll try another Jane Harper book again - because I loved the first two so much!

A big thanks to Flatiron Books and a NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this fantastic. Ok to read and review.

I’ve been a fan of Jane Harper for awhile now and this book did not disappoint. It’s the perfect balance between a slow/burn mystery and a thriller that I couldn’t put down.

10/10 would highly recommend.

Loss hits you hard and never fails to revisit you over and over and over again.

Jane Harper gifts us with the presence of Aaron Falk, once again, in her third installment of this series. Not to worry. Exiles reads perfectly as a standalone. But when you come front and center with the caliber of Jane Harper, you should read The Dry #1 and Force of Nature #2. They are that good.

Aaron Falk, a Melbourne police officer of the AFP Financial Division, is off to attend a delayed christening of the child of one of his closest friends. Falk looks forward to spending time with this family and is honored as a godfather. But the "delay" sits heavily upon everyone. And that's the story to tell.

It's been a year already since the disappearance of Kim Gillespie. She and her family were attending a festival in South Australia. Nothing added up from there on. Kim was last seen pushing her baby's pram to a corner of the activities........and then walking away. Someone found the baby unattended as evening set in. No Kim then. No Kim now. No clues then. No clues now.

Rohan, Kim's husband, lives in the aftermath. He is a fraction of the man he was a year ago. He must raise little Zoe alone and watch over Kim's teenage daughter, Zara, from a previous relationship. It's Zara who keeps vigil and refuses to stop searching for Kim.

Falk is every bit the top-notch investigator and solid friend that he has always been in the past. We observe how Falk sees the crisscrossing of these friendships and the realization that someone within this tight group knows more than what meets the eye.

Exiles is a slow burner at times as Harper takes us through the magnificient Australian countryside. She delves into these characters and their backstories in order to lay a solid foundation for this storyline. It's a heavy focus on the flaws within humans and just how that bleeds into individuals standing near and dear. Exiles is a splendid read and shouldn't be missed.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Flatiron Books and to the talented Jane Harper for the opportunity.

Aaron Falk might be one of my favorite characters, so I was thrilled to see he's back in Exiles by Jane Harper (who is one of my favorite authors). Aaron is thrust into another situation that he is reluctant to investigate, as he is on vacaction with old friends. However, he cannot ignore the unsolved mystery surrounding the missing wife and mother, Kim Gillespie. Who just leaves her baby at a carnival and disappears? Loved the story and was sad to see that this would be the final entry in the series. But...it was a great end.

This is such a quietly beautiful book. Yes, it's a mystery, but it's also about family and love and sacrifice and finding your place in the world. Jane Harper creates a world that immediately welcomes you and you empathize with all of the characters and the choices they make as they deal with the aftermath of two tragic deaths in their community. The big reveal is not splashy or climatic, but a slow realization that "we see what we want to see." Aaron Falk is also not a flashy or brash police officer, but quietly goes about his business and immediately fits in among his new friends in the wine country of the Marralee Valley. His calming presence and growth at the end of the book is what makes this novel so special.

Jane Harper is my FAVORITE crime author, and I love the Aaron Fall series. This one was no disappointment. A friend of a friend, a mom, leaves her baby behind at a festival and goes missing. Most people are sure she walked into the reservoir, but her daughter is convinced that someone is behind her disappearance. Things are rarely what they seem, after all.
SO GOOD. Harper has fantastic pacing, which means I never want to stop, even after a chapter is finished. And the crime/drama/suspects are so fleshed out, but also embedded into a real-time life that you can’t help but get invested. Nothing gruesome or graphic. Absolutely worth a read. Even a must read. And you don’t have to have read any previous book of hers.

Several years ago, I read Jane Harper’s The Dry – and I was hooked. Could not WAIT for her next book! The Dry, Force of Nature, and The Lost Man (all of which featured Federal Investigator Aaron Falk) were all five-star reads…and while I admit to being “an easy grader,” they all really were terrific. 2021’s The Survivors featured a different protagonist, and while I’m fairly sure it wasn’t one of my top picks last year, it was full of the same beautiful writing, stunning depiction of setting so vivid it became a character on its own, and plot surprises featuring interesting characters that the reader comes to KNOW. Well, buckle up – thanks to Flatiron Books and NetGalley, who provided a copy in exchange for my honest review, I scored a copy of Ms. Harper’s latest, The Exiles.

Aaron Falk is back (YAY!) and heads for a small town dep in Southern Australian wine country. Vacation? Not exactly, as he has traveled there for the christening of an old friend’s baby. When he arrives, the weekend is notable for another reason: it is the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Kim Gillespie. Kim was at a music festival, and she vanished right after tucking her sleeping baby into the stroller. Aaron and his old buddy Raco can’t stay away from such a juicy story.

Falk finds the valley where he is visiting nearly irresistible as he is welcomed into the group of bereft friends and loved ones who all miss Kim and can’t figure out why she would have abandoned her baby – if she actually did. But of course things aren’t as they initially seem: Falk’s closest friend, the missing mother, and a woman Aaron is strongly attracted to all combine to make the mystery more and more compelling.

Okay, you get the idea. And while I LOVED the experience of reading this, and I CANNOT wait for the next chapter in Aaron’s story, I wasn’t wild about the ending. Which (spoiler alert) is NOT the ending! So I am going four stars, with hopes for things to go my way in the next book…although it could be argued that the fact that I care enough about these characters who are REAL PEOPLE to me means it’s a five-star read. Whatever, just READ IT!

In Exiles, Jane Harper gives Aaron Falk another small-town mystery to solve--actually, two mysteries this time. The complicated relationships between the characters, along with persistent elements of grief, move the discovery along and past a series of dead ends. Falk needs to interpret different memories based on what is perceived and what is actually seen to find his solution. At the same time, he reignites a lost love opportunity.
Overall, great novel, with a bit of a slow-down in the middle. My only criticism involves two odd bumps in the POV; most of the book is in Falk's perspective, but for a couple short chapters, we jump to others characters' POVs, which, in a way, give up part of the mystery. Other than that, loved it!

Another extremely well written and intricately plotted book from Jane Harper. I'm so glad to have discovered this author! Aaron Falk is one of the more well-realized fictional characters I've encountered in my mystery reading. I'd love to see more of him, but Exiles reads as though this could be the end of the series.