Last One Out by Jane Harper
Last One Out is a deliciously twisty, compelling and unputdownable thriller about a mother’s long search for answers about what happened to her son who suddenly went missing five years earlier on his 21st birthday.
A Shocking Disappearance That Haunts a Family
Set in a dying rural small town in Australia, best-selling author Jane Harper masterfully delivers tantalizing tidbits of information on page after page about the possible reasons for the mysterious disappearance and the people there who are still hiding long-buried secrets that could be linked to it.
The book starts out incredibly dramatically from the very first pages when young Sam Crowley shockingly just vanishes from the town of Carralon Ridge as he’s about to turn 21, leaving his car behind in a wooded area near several abandoned houses. Harper describes the heartbreaking scene like this:
The car was loaded and seemed undamaged…a laptop computer lay undisturbed on the front seat, a water bottle and notebook in the rear. On the counter of his family’s kitchen, six kilometers away on the southeastern side of town, the young man’s 21st birthday dinner waited for him, cold and untouched.
His parents stand beside the car, looking first to each other for answers, then out at the horizon, the houses, the road, the bushland. They called their son’s name into the twilight, perhaps a little self-consciously to start and then, when there was no response, with mounting urgency. Straining their ears for a reply…there was only silence.
A Mother’s Return and a Town in Ruin
The story of what happens after that is told mostly through the eyes of Ro Crowley, Sam’s mother, who has returned to what’s left of the crumbling small town now from her new home in the big city of Sydney to join her estranged husband Griffith and daughter Della at a memorial ritual to mark the 5th anniversary since Sam disappeared.
There are many poignant scenes showing how Ro’s marriage and family have been torn apart in the past several years, stemming from their grief and shock and frustration over never being able to get any answers about what happened to Sam — and her obsessive search to finally find out the truth about what happened to him.
The other big strength of Harper’s writing in this book is the detailed, stark descriptions she gives of the “ghost town” that Carralon Ridge has become now — the streets empty, businesses closed and most of the people having sold or abandoned their homes and moved away. Hence, the title of Last One Out, which seems to be only a matter of time now.
This is described in this opening scene of what Ro sees when she first returns to the decimated town and approaches the crossroads that for years had served as the center of Carallon:
Once the heart and hub of the place, the commercial land on the four corners used to be prime real estate, but now the former bank was boarded up…diagonally opposite had stood Greeves & Son, where Ro used to buy her children’s clothes and school uniforms. Its doors had permanently closed four years ago and twelve months later what remained of the school followed in its wake.
The only things left there are a struggling general store for the handful of people still living in the town and a local bar that opens once in a while for special occasions.
A Shocking Truth
But the one business that is still thriving as a massive presence in the town is a huge coalmine operation called Lentzer, which has been buying up all the homes and property in the area for its own use — and there are numerous hints dropped by Harper through the story that they are an ominous presence and could somehow be involved in Sam Crowley’s disappearance.
Also potential suspects are some people still remaining in town who Ro thinks know more than they are telling about what actually happened to her son — and she realizes at some point that she’s not sure who she can trust anymore in her search for the answers she so desperately wants.
We also learn that Sam had been interviewing people for an oral history of the town – which led to speculation that he might have uncovered secrets about someone while doing that, which put his life in danger.
In the end, the truth about Sam is shocking, but also ultimately logical because of all the clues and evidence. Harper has cleverly spread out earlier throughout the story about him and the other people involved.
This is master storytelling at its best.
And a gripping page-turner of a book that you won’t be able to stop reading once you start.
Fans of Jane Harper – and she has a lot of them from her past best-selling thrillers – will not be disappointed by Last One Out.
About Jane Harper:
Jane Harper is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry, Force of Nature and The Lost Man. Jane previously worked as a print journalist in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne with her husband, daughter and son.
