Mystery set in the Australian Outback

Submitted: 16th March 2026

Last One Out – Jane Harper

Where are we going?

The Australian Outback

Think nothing for miles, dust, road tracks….. a very remote village

Secrets from the past

Carralon Ridge is the fictional settlement in the latest novel from Jane Harper

boarding pass new

The setting:

“Carralon Ridge, a once vibrant village in rural New South Wales, has become a shell of itself, its houses and buildings bought up and left to rot by the mining company operating at its borders.”

jane harper

Review

A novel that is very much centred on its location. And that, is music to my ears of course! Jane Harper does take me to some dark dusty areas of Australia though. Jane – maybe Sydney Beach next time? Well now, but that would not be Harper Territory now would it?

I think readers will compare this to her other books and say it’s somewhat slower. Well, it is a slow burn but the town is dying and the people are dying with it and that has to take time. There are some strange rumblings here – some very strange rumblings but in the hands of Jane Harper, you’re just waiting for the earthquake to start. And boy does it start…

The town, Carralon Ridge is one of the best places I have been to in fiction. Its small, isolated, being taken over by a coal mining company and the locals have secrets. This is a dying town where even the pub only opens for a few hours a week. There’s a missing boy…..all the ingredients of somewhere I want to be in a book but not in real life.

What really struck me here was the emotional impact this book had on me. I have no idea what it’s like to miss someone who disappeared. It’s a form of grieving ( which sadly I know all too well) and the pain of this, without closure, must be even worse. Seeing the family in the novel go through so much was heart-breaking.

This is a book that is so much than the sum of its parts. Yes the plot and ending are good but it’s the lingering stay in a dying town and watching it take its final breaths that really haunts me.

Harper Holidays anyone?

Key quote:

“…. the sun slowly crawled across the sky.
It was low on the horizon and the light was fading when his parents finally found the small red rental car, more than five hours later, parked near the point where the three tracks merged into one.”

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