Harper's books succeed in part because she conveys how even now, geography can be fate. Heat and empty space in her work defeat modernity, defeat logic, technology and even love, throwing us back upon our irreducible selves. By the time she reveals the (brilliantly awful) back story about Nathan's banishment from the few human comforts of Balamara—the pub, for example—the reader feels frantic for their restoration. The final pages of The Lost Man are somewhat predictable, but Harper is skillful enough, a prickly, smart, effective storyteller, that it doesn't matter. She's often cynical, but always humane. Book by book, she's creating her own vivid and complex account of the outback, and its people who live where people don't live.

11/19/2018
Australia’s outback, with its brutal climate and equally bruising isolation, looms as large as any character in this stark standalone from bestseller Harper (Force of Nature). For years, the three Bright brothers—divorced dad Nathan, the eldest; family man and everybody’s favorite, middle child Cameron; and the mentally challenged youngest, Bub—have maintained an uneasy equilibrium on adjacent cattle ranches. That flies out the window the week before Christmas when Cameron goes missing; his desiccated corpse is subsequently discovered a few miles from his perfectly operational truck in the shadow of the eerie headstone known as the stockman’s grave. Absent any clear indications of foul play, the local authorities undertake a perfunctory investigation, leaving a troubled Nathan to start asking questions that no one wants to answer. In the grim journey that follows, the surviving members of the Bright family must confront some devastating secrets. Harper’s sinewy prose and flinty characters compel, but the dreary story line may cause some readers to give up before the jaw-dropping denouement. Author tour. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House. (Feb.)

"Australian narrator Stephen Shanahan returns for another knockout performance." -AudioFile, Earphones Award Winner

"The novel’s strong sense of place and personality is handily conveyed by Australian voice actor Stephen Shanahan who narrates this thoroughly engrossing book in a no-nonsense Aussie accent." -Washington Post

"Stephen Shanahan's professional fully-voiced reading adds even more depth to [Jane] Harper's words as he carefully differentiates each character's voice with perfect pacing and a gentle, easily understood Australian accent." -SoundCommentary Editor's Pick

Australian narrator Stephen Shanahan returns for another knockout performance. Jane Harper’s latest audiobook isn’t part of her Aaron Falk series, but it still features the unforgiving Australian Outback, a vexing mystery, and richly drawn characters. Shanahan’s genuine accent is essential for the story’s setting and ambiance. He also shows remarkable range in his portrayal of the Bright family, cattle ranchers whose favored son, Cameron, dies under mysterious circumstances. Nathan, the eldest son, leads the search for answers. Shanahan gives him an appropriately stoic voice but hints at an underlying vulnerability. Nathan’s interactions with his family, achieved by Shanahan with the subtlest changes in tone and pitch, simmer with tension. It’s a slow and bleak affair, but no less enthralling than Harper’s and Shanahan’s previous efforts. A.T.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2020 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

★ 2018-11-13

A timely novel set in the furthest reaches of Australia by the author of The Dry (2017) and Force of Nature (2018).

The three Bright brothers are the overseers of 3,500 square kilometers of land in Queensland, with hours between each of their homes. It's a vast, unforgiving environment, and no one ever goes far without a full complement of supplies. When 40-year-old Cameron sets out on his own, ostensibly to fix a repeater mast, he never comes home. His body is eventually spotted, via helicopter, curled up by the stockman's grave, the source of plentiful, and persistent, local ghost stories. Cam's older brother, Nathan, and their baby brother, Bub, are as perplexed as the cop who's come all the way from Brisbane to investigate. What was Cam doing by the grave, and what was his Land Cruiser doing nine kilometers away, still fully stocked with supplies, with the keys left neatly on the front seat? The Brights' mother, Liz, is devastated, and Cam has also left behind his wife, Ilse, and two young daughters, Sophie and Lo. They're pragmatic folks, though, and there's a funeral to be planned, plus Christmas is just around the corner. Everyone seems to assume that Cam took his own life, but Nathan isn't so sure, and there's a strange dynamic in Cam's home that he can't put his finger on. Cam had been acting strangely in the weeks before his death, too. But Nathan's got his own problems. He's eager to reconnect with his teenage son, Xander, who's visiting from Brisbane, and he has a complicated history with Ilse. In the days leading up to the funeral, family secrets begin to surface, and Nathan realizes he never really knew his brother at all. Harper's masterful narrative places readers right in the middle of a desolate landscape that's almost as alien as the moon's surface, where the effects of long-term isolation are always a concern. The mystery of Cam's death is at the dark heart of an unfolding family drama that will leave readers reeling, and the final reveal is a heartbreaker.

A twisty slow burner by an author at the top of her game.