Exiles is the third installment in Harper’s mystery series featuring Aaron Falk. In the first novel, The Dry, Falk and Greg Raco investigate murders in Kiewarra, the small town where Falk grew up and Raco is the police sergeant. When Falk visits for a funeral, Kiewarra is in an exceptionally long drought. Raco asks for his help with a murder investigation. When Raco and Falk finally confront the murderer, he starts a fire. While it doesn’t burn all of Kiewarra, it does injure Raco and Falk. This fire is mentioned throughout Exiles as a source of trauma. Falk and Raco can’t be near fire, including candles and firepits, due to this traumatic event. This informs Falk’s decision at the end of Exiles to leave his job with the police in Melbourne to work at Charlie’s vineyard in Marralee. The case in Kiewarra forms the lasting bond between Raco and Falk that is seen in Exiles. The events of the second novel in the series, Force of Nature, occur between the two cases that Raco and Falk work on together. In Force of Nature, Falk works with a different sidekick, Carmen Cooper.