The Lost Man: A Novel Kindle Edition

Jane Harper has a way of putting you in the scene and making you feel the emotions that she wants you to feel. At the same time, you are at a distance, trying to get the larger picture, and figure out the mystery.I could feel the remoteness of the station. I understood the heat. I could imagine the underlying tension and fear that occurred every waking day in the characters lives.Good writing. Good story!

4.75 stars - Wow … what can I say about this book? It completely enthralled me from the first page and held me tight in its grip until the very last page (and beyond). This is a story that will stay with me for quite a while. I could see this being a very good book club pick just for the conversation alone that it would trigger.You know how in some books the setting is like one of the characters? This novel is a prime example of that. It takes place in the Australian Outback and the land is so harsh, and dangerous, and unforgiving, and yet compelling at the same time. This description also perfectly fits the Bright family that lives there and which this book focuses on. The characters are all so well-written, it’s like they’re sitting beside you breathing in your ear as you read it.The writing is tense, taut and so brilliant. You can feel the sun on the back of your neck and the dust in your eyes. There are so many things unsaid here, so many secrets; the kind we keep from others and the kind we keep from ourselves. It’s the best kind of family drama/mystery. This would translate so well into a limited TV series.This is my first novel by this author and now I’m itching to read more. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up! 👍 👍

After a promising debut with The Dry and an OK follow-up with Force of Nature, Jane Harper has got everything right in her third book, The Lost Man. From the first I've had a strong feeling that this was a great writer in the making, and as it turned out I was right. This is nothing short of a masterpiece, and I really cannot find anything to put my finger on. It reminds me of my all time favourite, Margaret Millar's book Beyond this Place is Monsters, if not in geography then very much in atmosphere.We are in Queensland, Australia, the land of vast cattle farms with the next door neighbours three hours away, where the brutal sun makes it fatal to wander off in the desert without water and means of transport. Cameron, the middle brother in the Blight family, knows this as well as anybody, having lived there all his live. Still, he's found dead from exposure by the Stockman's Grave, a nearby landmark surrounded by myths. At first it look like a suicide, and it is confirmed by family members that he had been depressed lately. But Cameron also had a lot to live for - a wife, two daughters and a prosperous property. He was also respected and well liked within the comunity. Could it be murder then? And if so, who would want him dead? His older brother Nathan, who is a loner and a recluse due to a messy divorce and a long custody battle, sets out to find the truth, however painful. The youngest brother Bub has troubles of his own, and it turns out that so has the other habitants on the property.In the process of finding out what happend to Cameron, family secrets of both past and present are revealed little by little, and so is the throubled relationship between the three Blight brothers. They are men of few words, and the unsaid is just as important as what is actually said.It takes time - at least it did so for me - to understand what this book is really about, and I don't want to give away too much here. All I can say about the ending is that I didn't see it coming.The book is so well written that I could easily feel the heat and the dust and imagine myself sitting down in the Blight family's kitchen eating meat and rice or drinking beer on their back porch.The Lost Man is not another Aaron Falk mystery but a stand-alone, which I think was a wise choice by the author.It's a story set at a slow pace, based on characters rather than action. The ending is not nearly as dramatic or violent as in the two prior books. I think that was a good choice too.

This is a story of survival. Survival against the elements. Survival after a critical error in judgment. Survival of loneliness. Survival of abuse. Survival of divorce. Survival of family, connections and love. It is a story of survival as a choice. This book is a well thought out puzzle more than a murder mystery. It is not an action-packed, plot-driven rampage through the pages. But, make no mistake, it is totally engrossing, and you will want to start it when you have a bit of time. I did not want to stop reading. Thank goodness, I can keep reading my Kindle in bed and not disturb my sleeping husband! Jane Harper is an excellent writer. Her characters are complex and three dimensional people. You can believe them and care about them. And they are memorable. Her ability to render a setting is phenomenal. I was fully transported to the outback of Australia. I was reading it in the middle of winter, but I could feel the searing sun and the blinding thirst. I felt that I needed to pack survival gear in my car just to head out to the suburban grocery store. Never mind that it did not make sense here; it just seemed necessary. Life in this incredibly remote area and harsh, unforgiving environment, made a fascinating backdrop to the story. The story is centered on one family consisting of three grown brothers, their widowed mother, one wife, two young girls and one teenaged boy. The story begins with the death of one of the brothers, and it is told from the point of view of Nathan, a surviving brother. That death is the catalyst that begins Nathan’s reconsideration and investigation of everything that has gone before with the inevitable exposure of secrets, betrayals, and concealments. The writing is fluent, and the pacing is perfect for this story. While this book remains within the mystery genre, it would pass muster as a literary read as well. Jane Harper will join our list of mystery writers that we pre-order and eagerly anticipate such as Martin Walker, Louise Penny, Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling), Jean-Luc Bannalec, Cay Rademacher, Paul Doiron, Ann Cleeves, and Elly Griffiths. I have read all three of her books now. This book will stand alone, so you do not need to have read the other two first. Although, if you have not read The Dry (her first book) you won’t want to miss it.

3 novels & each got marginally better, if not brilliant by this last one. 2 days reading, couldn’t put it down & with so many twists & turns & distractions I never saw it coming until it smacked me in the face at the end. And so it should be. Read the other 2 stand alone books, but definitely take this one on be blown away by all that fills the pages....the Australian outback, the visuals, the folk who do it tough but never back down in the face of so many hardships that nature throws at these people, families with secrets from each other, differing personalities.....this book has it all. Enjoy.

If I read a finer novel than this in 2019 I shall be delighted and very surprised. Recently, I have enjoyed a number of splendid Australian novels, including Jane Harper's The Dry, her first novel, and a rare achievement in itself, Scrublands, by Chris Hammer and Paul Howarth's Only Killers and Thieves, all of which strike me as notably good books. For me, anyway, The Lost Man puts even these in the shade.The story concerns three brothers, Nathan, Bub and Cameron (Cam), their extensive cattle ranches and their families. Each of the brothers is a strongly realised individual, none less than Nathan, through whose eyes we witness most of the events that make up the novel. He, like the others, has been seriously damaged in the past, and partly by circumstance and partly by choice he is an outsider even within the extended families, whose lives and interrelationships are progressively revealed. Jane Harper shows an exceptional skill in handling dialogue; it is natural, convincing and subtly revealing of character. It is never over-explicit. We, the readers, are left to draw inferences and thereby are drawn ever deeper into the lives of the characters and the events which shape their destinies.As with Scrublands - and there are a number of interesting parallels - key events and circumstances lie behind the narrative. There is not one of the characters who is not under the shadow of what has happened in the past. In many ways the story is a journey into the past as well as advancing towards a climax that is both unexpected yet wholly satisfying. The lives of not only the brothers but their families and associates, exert an increasingly firm hold on us, so that we feel at some depth the consequences of their actions and the ever shifting relationships between them. That they all inhabit a world so convincingly created, and so often demanding and more, only serves to root them even firmer into our minds. In short, a wonderful novel and a major contribution to the recent wave of Australian fiction.I have yet to read Force of Nature, a pleasure that awaits. There is enough in The Dry and especially this novel to more than whet the appetite.

First, so carefully, so cleverly, we are placed in a setting, the beautiful, prose and vivid descriptions totally setting the scene of the prologue, gripping from the start: A mystery, a terrible death and already, only a few pages in, I couldn't stop reading. "He had squeezed into that shade, contorting his body into desperate shapes, kicking and scuffing the ground as fear and thirst took hold......" ... Nobody writes Australian outback like Jane Harper...... You feel the harshness of the sun, the isolation of the outback. It's terrific - plot, characters, pace, dialogue. My first read of the year, way back in January was The Dry because the reviews were so good and I wanted to kick off the year with a great book. I equally wanted to finish my reading year with a great, entertaining and gripping read, not a so\so one, of which I have read a few, so again, selected this writer, and WOW. It's so good. Highly recommended. It sizzles.

In the outback of Queensland, Australia, two brothers, Nathan and Bub, stand at the Stockman's Grave at the border of both their vast cattle properties. Their middle brother, Cameron lies dead, killed by the unrelenting sun. It appear Cameron left his car, well stocked with supplies, in full working order and wandered off. Or did he?Told through the eyes of Nathan, Jane Harper brilliantly portrays to toughness, resilience and adaptability required to live and work in such a harsh, yet beautiful environment. Nature's ability to kill if you are unprepared is present at all times. Nathan has doubts this was Cam's way of commiting suicide, but cannot quite put his finger on why. Slowly pieces fall into place as to what may have happened as Nathan is effectively stranded at his family home until the funeral with his visiting teenage son, Xander.Family secrets and unspoken events are gradually exposed.This is an utterly gripping story, where each scene has a purpose. Jane Harper is a master story teller and I look forward to her next offering.

Reading a novel on Kindle is more challenging in some ways than reading a printed book. In this case, the very frequent flashbacks that move the narrative forward often made for a confusing read. I am not sure this would be so bothersome in a printed text. It was not always easy to work out the time-frame and who was being referred to, especially since the main narrator is not a detective, and is himself often confused.Having said this, the novel remains a real page-turner that kept me up all night. I thought the ending particularly good. The evocation of place is brilliant, with details about outback cattle-ranching that make the plot more convincing. But overall I liked it less than Harper's first 2 novels, especially The Dry.