The dry (2016)

Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken home town for funerals and is drawn into questioning an apparent murder-suicide. Harper gives him two connected reasons to investigate: the present deaths and the community's memory of his own departure. The first book works as an absorbing mystery before there is any need to follow Falk into Force of Nature or Exiles. Choose The Dry for an investigator whose reserve is useful to the story, and a landscape that applies pressure without replacing the clues.