Last One Out

by Jane Harper

THE DAZZLING NEW NOVEL FROM THE MASTER OF CRIME

He had been here, that was clear from the marks in the dust. And he had been alone.

In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his 21st birthday.

But Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out.

Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam's disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts.

But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain. If the truth is to be found in that town, does it lie among them?

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Australia, Thriller, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook

372 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 14, 2025

About the author

Jane Harper is the international bestselling author of The Dry, Force of Nature and The Lost Man.
Jane is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and has won numerous top awards including the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year, the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, and the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year.
Her books are published in more than 36 territories worldwide, with The Dry in production as a major motion picture starring Eric Bana.
Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK, and now lives in Melbourne.

Reviews

[Dorie - Cats&Books :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It pains me to give a Jane Harper book a 3* but this one didn’t work for me in so many ways!

PROS:
* Interesting premise of a dying town and how all of the residents are affected. Businesses closed and there are only a few still determined to stay.

* Description of the atmosphere in the town - the constant dust, dirt and noise from trucks coming and going. The very air in the town smells poisonous.

* Good set up with Sam whose disappearance caused Ro and Griff to separate and
Ro to leave the town.

CONS:
* Sam disappeared from a group of three houses that now belong to the mine, we revisit these same houses over and over. Even Harper’s wonderful writing didn’t save this one from being slow and repetitive.

* So many loose threads and lost opportunities to engage the reader further

* In the end what happened to Sam had to be explained to the reader - “telling without showing” is not the form I enjoy in a mystery.

I think this book is much more of a family drama and mystery - it definitely is not a thriller. If you go into it expecting a slow burn this may work better for other readers.

This was a buddy read with Carolyn, be sure to read her excellent review.

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss. It was my pleasure to read and review this title.

[Mandy White (mandylovestoread) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last One Out is a very different novel from Jane Harper. I was so excited to get an early copy to read from ,y lovely people at Pan Macmillan Australia,a big thank you.

This book did take a little bit to get into for me. It is a much slower paced mystery story, it so much crime novel as that part comes much later. This is a character and location driven drama about a family grieving and a town that is dying, corral on Ridge is slowly being taken over by the coal mining company taking over its land and forcing the locals away. Businesses are closing and even the local pub only opens a few hours a week. The Crowley family are grieving their son Sam,how disappeared 5 years earlier on his 21st birthday,never to be seen again.

We see how Sam’s disappearance has broken this family, and changed the people still hanging on in town. The family, especially mother Jo, doesn’t trust anyone anymore, and just wants their boy back. The resolution of this mystery wasn’t quite what I had hoped for but worked for the story.

As always Jane Harpers writing is superb. She really does bring you as a reader into the town with her narrative and descriptions of the land and the people. You can certainly picture it all as you read and get a sense of the feelings and emotions this family and town are experiencing.

If a Jane Harper writes it I will read it. I did enjoy Last One Out of course.

[Lavins · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded up

That bad? Yeah
This book should have had 2 chapters and it would have suffice.

This is an insanely long book where what you read in the synopsis is what is going to get you till the very end. All it contains till there is memories, regrets, descriptions, more memories, more regrets. A constant atmosphere of pain and doom. Okay I get it...but 50 chapters of this are not going to make it happen.

And when you get to the end...it's some sort of a...mistake and that's when people confess out of the goodness of their heart...

[Adrian Dooley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow I absolutely loved this one. A slow burn for sure but all the better of it.

Ro returns to the small and dying town of Carralon Ridge, her former home where five years ago her son went missing on his 21st birthday never to be seen again. This event tore Ro and her family apart, her marriage fell apart and she moved away from the town she had called home. A town that at the time had been and still is slowly dying due to a large coal mine which has appeared on its border and encroached ever closer as it bought out homes and demolished them.

With her son’s 5th anniversary coming up, as she returns to her former home and former family to mark the occasion she is determined to try and find out what happened on that fateful day.

As I said this one is a slow burn. It’s a character study more than a mystery. It’s a story about grief and how it effects people, more than a mystery, be it the grief of losing a loved one or the grief of losing what is familiar as the town itself is the one that is dying.

There is a mystery throughout of course but it often plays second fiddle to the characters, their relationships and their trauma.

I absolutely loved this one. Beautifully paced with vibrant and flawed characters with the bleak backdrop of the town, there’s a melancholy to the story that is constant throughout, only occasionally spiked and dipped by the goodness and badness in people.

A microcosmic look at the human condition that speaks as much about the world we live in as it does about the small town in Australia. An absolute tour de force.

Many thanks to the publisher for the ARC through Netgalley.

[John Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

At 33% I thought I was done with this one, but I persevered, mostly through the encouragement of my GR friend Billie-Jade. Thanks for that.

But as well written and sometimes gripping as the book was, with great descriptions of the town and it's characters, it still was a depressing read. A dying remote town with an ever encroaching mine taking over everything, partnered with the five year anniversary of their then 21 year old son going missing on his birthday, doesn't make for happy or even pleasant. Sam's mother Ro was an excellent narrator and the family and most friends were supportive. But as with all small towns, an undercurrent of malice and unsaid thoughts remain.

But once again, beautifully written. 3 stars, library ebook.

'She did miss Griff, deeply and often, but what she really missed was how they used to be, and that wasn’t who they were now.' pg 156

[Fmcklp · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lacked a sense of mystery, momentum and drive. Lots of repetition to the point of meandering. The character of Ro wasn’t the most compelling to spend time with. A clear, almost clumsy hint to who did it was dropped at one point and I immediately caught it. The alternate suspects were not convincing enough. I would give this a 2.5, there are now much better Aussie crime authors, although the genre is getting more and more crowded and cliched…

[Hannah Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too many characters, not very believable, boring and it dragged. Very disappointing! Sorry Jane Harper… loved your other ones but not this one.

[bookswithpaulette · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I heard Jane Harper was releasing a new book I knew I would fly through it in a couple of days. Thanks to the lovely team at Pan Macmillan I received an ARC.

It did not disappoint. It’s definitely a slow burn this one, reminded me a little of one of my favs of hers (The Lost Man). We have a small town seating The Crowley family are grieving the disappearance of their son on his 21st birthday. He was never seen again, 5 years on we see the impact on the small town as a coal mining company is taking over land and forcing out the locals.

Sam’s disappearance is still not solved we see the impact this has had on his family over the years, his mother Jo just wants her boy back. It’s a crime mystery story, as more bread crumbs are revealed.

I’m always immersed in Janes story telling, her vivid landscapes are a character in their own right. I was drawn into this mystery from the get go.

Is this gem on your radar?

[Sheree | Keeping Up With The Penguins · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s an interesting addition to the genre of Australian books about missing persons, in that it weaves the mystery into a wider story about the impact of absence on those left behind and the pressures of small-town life.

My full review of Last One Out is up now on Keeping Up With The Penguins.

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am an absolute sucker for crime novels set in Australia

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a book about nothing. You could read the last couple of chapters and know as much as you would had you read the whole book. I skim read this and struggled the whole way through which is a first for me with a Jane Harper book.

[Anna Loder · Rating 3 out of 5]

A poignant depiction of a dying town…and a mother grieving her missing son, but it didn’t quite work for me. I did have Jane Harper high expectations 😔 out mid October, and massive thanks to Macmillan for my arc.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed by this one. I appreciate Harper wanting to do something quiet and maybe more character-driven. Yet, she follows the same format as a typical mystery. Here therein lies the problem: the pacing is dreadful. Page after page of not much other than the repeated observation that the sky is so bright that it brings tears to the eyes (or some close version of that). 30 pages (2/3 of the way in no less!) of characters comparing keys to a found key was less than exciting. I would’ve rather had longer chapters fleshing out the history of the characters but the information is dumped onto the reader. The last 40 pages gets to what Harper is keen to do, so I ask “why fight it for 300 pages.
I wanted to like this; I encourage authors to try new things. This just did not land

[ANDREA · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very disappointed in this book ,I couldn’t finish it so very slow . Nothing made any sense . It just dragged on . Skipped a few chapters to see if it got any better . But sadly didn’t work for me .

[Anne Buist · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about grief. It is a book about small towns and the emotional consequences of a town dying - in this case because of a mining take over, but it could be all the other reasons small towns die. It’s a surprising book in the sense that it is not quite what I expected (I’ve read all her other books) though to be fair the last one set in Tasmania was not about cops either. In this the missing presumed dead child is there from the beginning. No police. No investigation. No suspicion really either. Nor about the other earlier suicide…but a slow burn of emotions as things unfold. Slow pace but I couldn’t stop reading regardless- beautiful prose that puts us in the town and family viscerally. The Lost Man was my previous favourite - this is up there with it though a very different book.

[eighteenohfive · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was apprehensive about going into this book as I’d read some of the other reviews about it being slow, and less about the crime and more about the town. I’m a big Jane Harper fan so was worried I’d be let down, but to be quite honest, I think this is one of her best works. Admittedly, it is more ‘literary noir’ than traditional crime; it’s very much character focussed, with the dying town one of the main characters, and the crime itself is more background, particularly for the first half of the book. It’s definitely much slower, but the writing is evocative and beautiful, with a sharply developed mystery to keep things interesting. I’m glad I had lowered my expectations, because I think if I was expecting a typical Harper, I would have been disappointed, but going in knowing it would be a bit different allowed to me to slow down and enjoy the richness of it.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slow burn crime novel but with, as always, Jane Harper's amazing ability to build a sense of place and people.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately this was a bit boring. A dying town in the shadow of a big mining operation, a family torn apart by grief at the unexplained loss of their son, depressing characters and abandoned buildings, it’s an overload of grim. The story just felt sad and the disappearance of 21 year old Sam seemed a bit unbelievable, as did all the angst about townsfolk who were leaving. I wanted to see how it finished but ultimately it was uninteresting.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️ ahhh I wanted to like this because I LOVE all her other books but sadly it was not for me. The first half, I was sooo disinterested I almost didn’t continue reading. Had to skim read my way through the middle section, waiting for something to happen.

[Catherine]

I have loved other Jane Harper book, but this one...it was very very slow and there was no hook. All we know was that someone disappeared 5 years ago. But halfway through the book the characters were still being introduced and there was no new discovery to do with the disappearance,etc. so it was like...what's the point?

[Marit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in a small town in New South Wales this story reads less like a whodunnit and more like a detailed and in-depth psychological mystery. Five years ago Ro Crowley and her ex-husband, Griff, discovered that their twenty-one year old son had disappeared without a trace on his birthday. Their once thriving town, Carrolon Ridge, is slowly dying as the nearby coal mine buys up more and more land and demolishes the dwellings. Ro lives in Sydney whereas Griff is still in Carrolon. They and their daughter, Della, gather each year for a memorial service. Ro is determined is to find out what each of the remaining residents remembers and who has the key to this ongoing mystery. An exceptional tale.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ro’s son Sam went missing on his 21st birthday and was never seen again.This incident broke her family apart.
Now five years later Ro has returned home to see if she can find out what happened to her son.
A slow burn story about a dying mining town with very little inhabitants and people who are keeping secrets.
Thank you to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Billie-Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

As many other readers have remarked, Jane's latest novel is a slow burn. Nevertheless, I never once wanted it to speed up. Fast paced means nothing if the writer fails to create atmosphere, and to bring characters to life insofar as they feel real. Jane is an expert at both, and it's a pleasure and privilege to experience. I would still classify this novel as an outback noir mystery, but also with the writerly merits of credible literature. I am once again reminded why Harper is among my favourite authors and a true exemplar of the genre.

[Olga · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last One Out suffers from a sluggish pace that never builds meaningful tension. the plot unfolds predictably, and the conclusion is neither surprising nor satisfying. characters feel flat and their motivations thin, making it hard to stay engaged. overall, it is a disappointing read and a far cry from the depth and atmosphere of The Lost Man.

[Krystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly a disappointing offering from someone who started so strong. I find Jane Harper's stuff really hit or miss!

If you're into the atmospheric stuff, you might enjoy this tale of a dying town, but I wouldn't look here for a good crime story.

Full review to come

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Vibes: Slow Burn, Rural Grit

- - -
I truly never expected the day to come where I would say a less than glowing word about a Jane Harper novel… but here we are.

I was very excited for a new release (as was half my town based on the 100+ people waiting behind me on the library hold list) but sadly, Last One Out probably should have been Last One On The TBR.

As always, Jane nails her signature atmospheric rural landscapes and a character list packed with potential. But beyond that things are not so positive.

Nearly 3/4 of the book felt devoted to introducing characters. Brilliantly described characters for sure but it meant the pace dragged and the plot barely moved. I kept waiting for that classic Jane Harper snap, but it never quite arrived.

I held out hope that a punchy ending would save the day but unfortunately, I picked the culprit early and instead of a juicy twisty reveal it seemed to be more of a straightforward confession.

A disappointing read from an author I adore but thankfully, Jane’s backlist is full of brilliance. If you haven’t read it yet, The Lost Man is my top recommendation.

[Ms Jelena Markovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not feel like her writing style at all. Lots of unnecesary adjectives that just seemed to pad things out rather than serve a purpose. The plot was ok-ish but nothing more. Personal opinion. :)

[Toss Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story. Gripping. Great characters.

[Brooke Layer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Harper • Last One Out

Jane Harper never disappoints, ever.

Carralon Ridge, a once vibrant village in rural New South Wales, has become a shell of itself. Five years ago, Sam vanished while visiting during a break from college, leaving behind a rental car with his belongings inside. When Ro returns to Carralon Ridge to be with her husband and daughter on the anniversary of Sam’s disappearance, she begins to suspect that something was overlooked in his case. Because while nothing can stop Carralon ridge from dying, someone seems to want to make sure its secrets die with it.

Last One Out felt so different to Jane’s previous work, but at the same time it felt so familiar. This was everything I wanted it to be and more. Jane’s writing makes you so comfortable in the story it’s easy to forget it’s fiction. I loved the characters in this book; each one felt like someone you want to know more about.

Jane Harper has been my favourite author for a long time so you’d think I’d be able to read between the lines by now and figure out the story quicker. But, each time I genuinely have no idea what happens until Jane wants me to and I love it.

Once you read the end of the book you suddenly remember all the parts earlier where it should have clicked for you and you should have seen it coming but you just don’t until Jane spells it out and I love that. I love that no matter how many thriller or mystery books I read I can’t pick the ending of Jane’s books. Maybe that’s why she’s my favourite.

Add Last One Out to the list of Jane Harper movies I’m expecting. Any way we can fit Eric Bana into this one too? Asking for a friend.

[Molly Sharpe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last One Out was one of my most anticipated releases of 2025 and wow am I disappointed. Harper of course remains a master of creating place but I felt absolutely no intrigue or real connection to this story at any point of the book. Such a shame.