The Dry recap

Federal investigator Aaron Falk returns to drought-ravaged Kiewarra for the funeral of his childhood friend Luke Hadler, who appears to have killed his wife Karen and son Billy before taking his own life. Luke's parents persuade Falk to look closer, and local sergeant Greg Raco helps him test inconsistencies in the evidence. Their inquiry revives the death of Falk's teenage friend Ellie Deacon, for which the town long blamed Falk. The Hadler killings prove unrelated to Luke's character: school headmaster Scott Whitlam murdered the family after Karen discovered he was stealing grant money to cover gambling debts. Falk and Raco expose him after a dangerous confrontation in the dry bush. Falk also learns that Ellie's abusive father Mal killed her when she tried to run away. He leaves town having cleared Luke and finally understood the tragedy that forced his own family from Kiewarra.

In the middle of a severe drought, federal financial investigator Aaron Falk returns reluctantly to his hometown of Kiewarra. His childhood friend Luke Hadler, Luke's wife Karen, and their son Billy are dead; only baby Charlotte survived. Police believe Luke killed his family and himself. Falk attends the funeral because Luke's father Gerry sent a message invoking a secret from twenty years earlier: Falk and Luke lied about where they were on the day their friend Ellie Deacon drowned. The town blamed Falk for Ellie's death and drove his family away. Gerry and Barb Hadler insist that their son could not have committed the new killings and ask Falk to examine the circumstances before he leaves.

Falk agrees to make a limited inquiry and joins local sergeant Greg Raco, who has noticed details that do not sit comfortably with murder-suicide. The ammunition and the placement of events at the farm suggest planning rather than a sudden collapse. Falk encounters open hostility from Mal Deacon and Grant Dow, Ellie's father and cousin, while reconnecting with childhood friend Gretchen Schoner. Flashbacks show the close but uneasy teenage group of Falk, Luke, Gretchen, and Ellie, and the false alibi that Falk and Luke gave one another after Ellie died. The new investigation and the old suspicion begin to overlap in the town's mind, even though Falk has no proof that the two deaths are connected.

Falk and Raco reconstruct Luke's last movements, test local rumors about his marriage, and consider whether someone used the family's difficulties to make the deaths look domestic. The drought has left farms and businesses near failure, creating resentments and possible financial motives. Karen's work at the school emerges as a promising line of inquiry, while a note among her papers appears at first to point toward Grant Dow. Gretchen describes Luke as strained but not capable of killing Billy. Falk also becomes more certain that the accepted story of Ellie's suicide concealed fear and violence within her home.

The investigators keep pressure on the people around Luke while separating evidence from Kiewarra's long-held grudges. Grant is belligerent and financially desperate, but the case against him remains circumstantial. Falk's renewed closeness with Gretchen is complicated by questions about her past with Luke. At the school, headmaster Scott Whitlam appears cooperative and overwhelmed by the aftermath of Billy's death. Karen had been concerned about school finances before she was killed, and Falk and Raco begin to see that a reference they had treated as a person's name may instead concern grant money. That change in interpretation shifts the inquiry away from the most visible local suspect.

Falk and Raco establish that money has disappeared from a school grant and that Karen had found enough irregularities to threaten the person responsible. Their attention turns to Whitlam, whose respectable position hides serious gambling losses. The killings can now be reconstructed as an attempt to silence Karen: Whitlam went to the Hadler property, shot Karen and Billy, and killed Luke when he arrived, then arranged the bodies and weapons to implicate Luke. As Falk and Raco close in, Whitlam flees into country so dry that a single spark could become a major fire, turning the arrest into a threat to the whole district.

Whitlam sets the bush alight during the confrontation, but Falk and Raco survive and expose his theft and the staged Hadler murder-suicide. Luke is cleared, giving his parents and surviving daughter the truth about the family. Falk then resolves the older mystery through the evidence and memories surrounding Ellie's attempted escape. Ellie had packed to leave her abusive home, but Mal Deacon caught her at the river and drowned her; the suspicion directed at Falk protected the real killer for decades. With both cases understood, Falk can leave Kiewarra without the accusation that drove him away, though the town remains scarred by drought, violence, and the people it lost.

Falk and Raco discover that Karen had noticed money missing from a school grant and had been gathering records about it. Headmaster Scott Whitlam, whose gambling losses led him to steal the funds, killed Karen and Billy to prevent exposure; Luke arrived during the crime and was also shot, allowing Whitlam to stage the scene as a family murder-suicide. When confronted, Whitlam flees into the tinder-dry bush and starts a fire, but Falk and Raco survive and the Hadler family is cleared of the accusation against Luke. The older mystery is also resolved. Ellie had meant to flee her abusive home, but her father Mal found her at the river and drowned her. Falk leaves Kiewarra with Luke's name publicly restored and a private understanding of Ellie's fate, although the losses themselves cannot be repaired.