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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dry, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Human Cost of Climate Change
Justice
Urban vs. Rural
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Sergeant Raco tells Falk he’d go crazy if he had to live like Sullivan, holed up in such a desolate place with Gran. Falk tells Raco about Gran’s apparent surprise at the end of Sullivan’s story and asks whether her reaction suggests that Sullivan was lying about being alone all night. Raco finds it interesting but has no other reason to doubt Sullivan’s word. Raco adds that if Sullivan wanted to kill Luke, he could’ve easily staged it while culling rabbits.
After the previous chapter, which seems to end with Sullivan telling a lie, it would be natural to suspect that Sullivan might be the killer. Raco, however, quickly shoots down this idea by suggesting that Sullivan had a much easier way to kill Luke, if that was his goal. The book constantly anticipates questions the audience might ask and tries to manage audience expectations by having the characters themselves ask the questions.
Themes
Falk asks Sergeant Raco why he’s still in Kiewarra, and Raco says it was just the first available opportunity to run his own station. Falk then tells him that he’s been through the Hadler family’s financial records but hasn’t found anything interesting yet. Mostly he learned that Karen was a good bookkeeper. As they talk, they re-trace Luke’s route, driving from Sullivan’s to where Luke’s body was found in his ute.
Raco’s origin story shows how he values independence and would prefer to run his own station rather than work under someone else. Karen’s skill as a bookkeeper connects her to Falk, who also has to understand financial records well as part of his job as a financial crimes officer. Just as Raco sees himself in the young father Luke, Falk sees himself in the meticulous bookkeeper Karen.
Themes
As Falk and Sergeant Raco approach the clearing where the search party found Luke’s body, Raco confirms that based on the blood splatter, Luke must have been shot right on the ute. Falk and Raco speculate about what might’ve happened if Luke wasn’t the one who killed his family. Someone, perhaps the very strong Sullivan, might have forced Luke to sit in the passenger seat of the ute while the murders happened, although Luke himself was strong and Falk doesn’t see any defensive signs of struggle on Luke in the photo.
Luke’s lack of a struggle suggests that either the rumors are true and he did kill himself or his murderer was someone that he knew. This doesn’t narrow things down too much, since in a small town like Kiewarra everyone knows each other, but it does suggest that perhaps violence is lurking beneath the surface of one of the seemingly normal people that Falk has met so far on his investigation.
Themes
