Book Review: THE LOST MAN by Jane Harper

Title: The Lost Man

Author: Jane Harper
Publisher: Macmillan Australia
Read: November 2018

Expected publication: out now in Australia

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!

Book Description:

Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland.

They are at the stockman's grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last chance for their middle brother, Cameron.

The Bright family's quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn't, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects...

My musings:

As I am sitting here, open-mouthed and still reeling from the emotional impact Jane Harper’s latest novel has made on me, I can only stutter: “Blimey, this book is good!” It not only contained everything I love in a mystery, but I would also be hard-pressed to name another mystery that so vividly evoked the harsh and unforgiving landscape of the Australian outback for me. This truly is armchair travel of the best kind! I can still taste the red grit of pindan on my chafed lips as I emerge, slightly dazed, from a massive all-day read-a-thon. Be warned – it’s best to start this one when you have plenty of time to spare, as it will suck you in and not let you go until the mystery is unravelled!

If you have read Harper’s earlier novels, you will know that she has a real knack for presenting the reader with real people, in real situation, in a landscape so untamed and raw that it can only be remote Australia. This time, however, there is no detective to uncover the cause of a young man’s sudden unexplained death, only a family torn apart by secrets and a brother trying to work out what killed his younger sibling. Was it suicide? Revenge? Cold-blooded murder, or just an accident? As the story slowly unfolds, with the clever little twists and reveals Harper throws in at exactly the right time, the answer will drive an arrow straight through your heart.

Lovers of slow-burning and character driven psychological thrillers will find every element that makes for a great story here: the remote atmospheric setting, true-to-life characters and an intriguing mystery based around the skeletons in the Bright family’s closet. Set on a remote cattle station surrounded by endless horizons of dry Queensland desert, it could even be called a kind of “locked room mystery”, as the small cast of characters may as well be trapped in the house together – if not by closed doors, then by the harsh landscape surrounding them. It seems that each and every character is hiding some sort of secret, many of which will really surprise and shock you as the layers of carefully constructed lies and omissions are being stripped away. There is even an old stockman’s grave that lends this story a creepy element, which I loved. But perhaps it is not the ghosts of stockmen the Bright family have to fear, but someone much closer to home ...

My words are woefully inadequate to gush my praises for this book, just to say that I enjoyed every minute of it and not much else got done in my household whilst this book had me utterly under its spell. I have been to the Australian outback and my kids even attended the school of the air for a year, so I could picture the setting very well and it brought back a few memories for us. But never fear, Harper’s words alone will transport you there regardless of where you live and what you have seen. I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoys a setting that acts as a character of its own, or really anyone who enjoys a great mystery based around family dynamics. Definitely one of my favourite reads of 2018 and one you may find under your Christmas tree this year if Santa has any sense. 

Summary:

Utterly brilliant!