Title: The Lost Man
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...
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.
Utterly brilliant!
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