The Dry

This was REALLY good. It's super atmospheric, and the characters are well fleshed out as the book moves along. It's not very fast-paced, but that's a product of the languidness of the dying farming town, and the pacing feels right for the story it's telling. The plot description is very similar to Bonfire, but Aaron Falk is a much more reliable and trustworthy narrator, and I found The Dry to be significantly more enjoyable, even in its desolation and desperation. The whole thing was very satisfying, even when it was leaving me on the edge of my seat.

The audio was pretty good, but some things were a little weird; the book contains flashbacks within scenes, so Falk might be talking to the other cop, and it'll flash back - sometimes within his perspective, sometimes in someone else's - and there's not much differentiation, you just have to pay attention and it's not hard to figure out what's happening. (I read in other reviews that in print this is differentiated in italics, but ... well, we don't read aloud in italics.) This was made doubly confusing because the narrator occasionally threw in these long pauses between sentences, and not even at the beginning of a new scene or flashback or chapter. Just, paused for effect? I dunno. That was weird. Anyway, if you're a close payer-attentioner of audiobooks, it's not a problem, just a distraction.