This is an excellent read that I thoroughly enjoyed. The main character, Nathan, is so well portrayed - living in isolation in a poorly populated area of the Australian outback where there is little sense of community, spending months at a time speaking to no-one, not even his famiiy in adjacent properties.
Jane Harper describes Nathan's state of mind and his surroundings so brilliantly I could really imagine the huge areas of nothing but sand and dirt roads with no hope of life being rewarding or a future offering anything better.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Jane Harper/Little Brown Book Group UK for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

Jane Harper has written two excellent novels in the Aaron Falk series and this is her first standalone novel. What a fantastic book it is too. Tense, intriguing and based around a family which feels like a powder keg about to go off. The book opens with brothers Nathan and Bub stood over the dead body of their older brother Cameron. Life in the Australian outback is harsh and unforgiving and it appears that the experienced Cameron threw out every rule of survival in the book and wandered off into the searing heat and died. While Cameron’s death looks like a suicide, Nathan isn’t convinced and when he starts asking questions it throws a light on his own mental frailty as he struggles to make a living in the brutal outback.

This is a brilliant book on so many levels. The family tensions are intricate and smartly written. The story is perfectly paced, there’s a slow drip, drip of revealed secrets and enough variance in the characters to make you second guess who, if anyone, was responsible for Cameron’s death. The Australian outback sounds like a brutal place. Jane Harper does a perfect job of describing its unrelenting toll on the body and mental state of those who live out there. Nathan has been living a solitary and lonely existence and has resisted the attempts of the local doctor to reach out to him. It’s a nice touch how Nathan doesn’t feel able to talk to anyone but voluntarily gives up his guns licence and hands his weapons in to abate some of that worry. He’s an interesting main character and the slow reveal of his back story was one of my favourite parts of the book.

Jane Harper is keeping up the high standard she set with her first book. It makes perfect sense to have this as a stand-alone book as if the story was in a Falk novel we would have been deprived of Nathan’s voice. It’s a really interesting and original premise and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Perfect if you love tense thrillers, be prepared to lose an afternoon to this scintillating story!

I received a ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

When I was contacted by Little, Brown about this blog tour I was thrilled to be able to take part. Adored Jane Harper’s previous two novels (The Dry and Force of Nature), and was excited to see what her novels will be like outside of the Aaron Falk series. And I’m thrilled to say that it didn’t disappoint!

While her previous novels were very much traditional crime novels focusing on the investigation, The Lost Man was very different in tone.

Here we follow Nathan after his younger brother Cameron is discovered dead on his isolated farm. We’re seeing a family in the aftermath of the death of a relative, how they’re coping with grief and how they get on with their day to day lives.

We also discover more about Cameron and Nathan’s lives, and how they both came to the place they are today.

This was an incredibly atmospheric book, both from the perspective of the familial feelings and relationships, as well and the incredible setting of an isolated (and dangerous) area of Australia.

Even if you’re not usually a crime fan, I would definitely recommend trying this out. The family drama element is so interesting, I think you’d still enjoy!

It’s great to see Jane Harper try something a little different, and this has solidified the fact that I would happily read anything she publishes in the future.

Full disclaimer. I'm a big fan of Jane Harper's Aaron falk novels. I was a little disappointed by 'Force of Nature', but only because I thought 'The Dry' was so brilliant. When I heard that she was writing a standalone novel, I was fascinated to see how it would differ from her detective series. The good news is that it is a brilliant departure. It has all the great elements of her previous works, atmospheric setting used to brilliant effect, unreliable characters with complex issues and brilliant plotting that immediately absorbs you and keeps you in its grip with every page. Furthermore, it leaves the detective behind to focus on a more family led mystery.

The book focuses on the Bright family and its dark history that is brought to the fore when one of its own is found dead in mysterious circumstances. Harper, in my mind, paces the book brilliantly. It’s a slow burn of a novel, but with every page she slowly feeds you more details about each family member, painting a twisted family portrait. She slowly builds each character, and yet as you learn more you become more untrusting of each person.

As with ‘The Dry' and ‘Force of Nature', the setting is used to brilliant effect. The family business is based on a remote outback ranch, and as the past of each character is revealed, the harsh and volatile landscape not only evokes the danger that lurks in the vast surroundings, but also serves as a prison, entrapping them with the untold threat close to home.

I will say that I was a little disappointed with the end of the book. Whilst logical, it fell a little flat. Part of this was probably the fact that I was so upset to have come to the end of the book after devouring it in a few sittings. Nevertheless, I was enthralled by 'The Lost Man' and really enjoyed how the mystery unfolded. Another brilliant book from Jane Harper!

I've heard a lot about Jane Harper's books but this is the first I have read. I'm not sure what I was expecting, probably a crime novel, but The Lost Man is what I would call a domestic drama.

It's hugely atmospheric, set in the Australian outback in intense heat. I could almost feel the sun beating down, the dust, the arid conditions, the sense of space.

The main character is Nathan Bright, a man who is living a solitary life. His family are as near as they can be, on neighbouring land, but they're still miles away. One day, his brother, Cameron, is found dead near a local landmark, the stockman's grave. It's a puzzling death as nobody who knew the landscape as well as he did would just have wandered off like that.

From that start we then follow the remaining family over the Christmas period as they deal with Cameron's death, other family matters that come to light, and old grievances which rear their ugly head.

The Lost Man is a story of family relationships, of how the past can affect the future. It's a slow burner of a read and I mean that in the best possible way. It takes its time to build up, to reveal itself to the reader and even when it does so it does it incrementally. I liked Nathan a lot and I found the ending of the book to work really well from his point of view.

There's a real sense of mistrust in this book, an underlying tension between all the characters which is impossible for the reader to ignore. It's quite bleak in many ways, and that seems to fit well with the landscape, for the setting is as much a character as any other.

I enjoyed The Lost Man a lot. It's an intense and brooding family story which kept my interest all the way through.

This is essentially a family drama and is very much character-driven, set in an isolated part of Australia hundreds of miles from anywhere and revolving around the death of Cameron Bright. There are three Bright brothers – Nathan the oldest, then Cameron and the youngest brother, Bub. They have a vast cattle ranch in the Queensland outback.

The book begins with the discovery of Cameron’s body lying at the the base of the headstone of the stockman’s grave – a headstone standing alone, a metre high, facing west, towards the desert, in a land of mirages. It provides the only bit of shade for miles around. He had obviously died an agonising death in the intense forty-five degrees of heat, crawling round the headstone in search of its shade as the earth rotated around the sun. Nathan and Bub meet at the site and can’t understand why he was there – his car was found several kilometres away and at first they assumed he had just walked away to end his life, but that didn’t seem to make sense. Nathan just can’t believe Cameron would do that. There is little actual police investigation and so Nathan delves into the past on his own looking for answers. He is astonished at what he finds.

Nathan is a solitary man, divorced and living alone, a three hours’ drive from the rest of the family. There is a mystery surrounding his isolation not just from his family but also from the small town, three hours drive away. Whereas, Cameron, who took over the ranch after his father died, is well liked, married with two little girls. The youngest brother, Bub, meanwhile is an angry young man, resentful of the way Cameron runs the business, mainly because he thinks his views are being ignored. As Nathan tries to fathom what had happened hidden passions and resentments begin to surface and it becomes clear that this is a dysfunctional family. He realises there was a lot about his family he had never known.

Throughout the book the Australian outback looms large, a huge and isolated territory, red earth stretching for hundreds of miles, with its unbearable heat, dust and, at times, the threat of flood. But it’s the characters, as their past history and relationships are exposed and they became real personalities, that made the book such compelling reading for me. I liked the storytelling, the details of the legends surrounding the stockman, the drama of the family grieving over Cameron’s death – and the mystery of his death – was it suicide or murder, and if it was murder who had killed him and why?

It’s a powerful and absorbing book and after I finished it I wondered about the title – just which one of the men was the ‘Lost Man‘. I’m still not sure, maybe they all were …

I absolutely loved the first two books from this author so you can imagine my excitement when I was offered a copy of her new book to review. I was not disappointed as this book is her best one yet!

The author does a fantastic job of setting the scene so the reader is able to vividly imagine the setting. I felt like I could really feel the heat and the dust of the outback whilst reading. The vastness of the outback is something that is difficult to comprehend if you live in a small country like the UK but the author does a great job of helping the reader understand it with the distances between next door neighbours seeming huge. The heat and the vastness of the place helps to add claustrophobia to the story as you slowly realise how few people live there and therefore how few people could be involved.

The three brothers and their family immediately piqued my interest as I felt there was more to them than is originally revealed. The story is told from Cameron’s point of view and the reader slowly gets to know more about him and his family as the novel goes on. The slow reveal of family secrets is fantastically done and means that the reader is gripped to the book throughout. I couldn’t put it down and found myself hiding from the kids so I could read a tiny bit more. There were lots of fantastic twists which took me completely by surprise, especially the big reveal which made me gasp out loud. I always love it when this happens

This is the third book by this author and I can’t wait to read more from her in the future. If you like gripping, absorbing fiction then you’ll love this book!

Huge thanks to Grace Vincent for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Little Brown for my copy of this book via Netgalley which I received free in exchange for an honest review.

Jane Harper goes from strength to strength in her writing.

Once again she brilliantly evokes the Australian outback in all its beauty and cruelty. The effect this has on the people who live there. The danger of rumour and speculation. The isolation and fear that can rip a small community.

This is a murder mystery, a love story, and a family saga. A novel that gets you as close as you can to being there without going there.

I'd definitely recommend it for the quality of the writing and the quality of the plotting.

Nathan Bright's dog has died, his woman has left him and, even if his truck is running fine, his farm - actually a typically vast tract of land in the Australian outback - is on the ropes because the land is poor. He can be forgiven, a couple of times in this book, for sitting on the verandah of his brother's farmhouse and moodily strumming a guitar.

And indeed, Nathan does suffer from a degree of self-pity, reasonably, you might think, when you learn he's being shunned by the local community (again, "local" is a slippery concept, it's a three hour drive into town), that dog was probably poisoned, and much of Nathan's time and money is consumed by lawyers as part of custody battle for his son, Xander.

And more comes to light as well which I won't reveal here because spoilers, sweetie. I'll just say that Nathan and brothers Cameron and Bub haven't had it easy. Cameron's had it hardest perhaps because as the book opens, he's dead, victim of the overpowering heat of an Aussie summer. But why was he out at the "Stockman's Grave, ten kilometres from his abandoned car? Was the death suicide? An accident? or something more sinister?

I really loved the way that Harper spins this story as a mystery - and it is, with subtle clues, an air of menace, and a real solution - while keeping the focus on the people. Yes, the police do make an incidental appearance but they're not really investigating anything here. There's no role, I'm afraid, for Aaron Falk, Harper's protagonist from The Dry and Force of Nature (though she makes clear the book does take place in the same "world" - there is a reference, indeed a family link, to Kiewarra). That's a brave choice, marking this as a different kind of crime story from its predecessors. The strands of the mystery here are all around personalities, motives, relationships, not forensics or pathology.

And it's a mystery that challenges Nathan's conception of himself, his self-sufficiency on that wretched farm, his relationship with his son and the history of his family. Harper adeptly relates the lives of these rural Australians to the unforgiving landscape - to the cosseted Pom, it's almost a science fictional world where survival depends on functioning aircon, refrigeration and your truck, an unprotected man or woman having no chance; you always travel with spare water, food, a radio; each farmhouse has its own drug kit, with locked compartments to be accessed only on the say-so of the Flying Doctor service; cold rooms that store months of food, delivered twice a year by truck; how the removal of melanomas is routine, kids do their schooling on the radio or Internet.

It is a land where things can go wrong so quickly, where distance and isolation means survival depends on a web of mutual support and trust, people depending on one another - and able to wield great power. Only an insider would be able to see what might have happened here, but any insider would be too close, too involved to see it clearly. Negotiating the fine line between the two, Harper has Nathan begin to doubt everything, everyone.

This was a satisfying mystery, with excellent, relatable characters and a credible, tightly woven plot which kept me guessing till the end. To a degree it revisits a theme from The Dry - the man who has bene ostracised from one of those remote communities - but in finding a different way to cope than did Falk, Nathan allows Harper to explore a different side of Australia, confronting some very basic human truths about survival, love and endurance.

Excellent reading.

When Cameron Bright is found dead, parched and burned by the unremitting Australian sun, everyone, including the police, is inclined to dismiss it as suicide or misadventure - for whatever reason, he had become stranded in this spot with no shelter and no way of calling for help. But his brother Nathan isn't convinced. He feels that, like any rancher in the area, Cameron was well aware of the danger of being stranded in open, arid country without shelter and water; it's a fact of life in the Australian outback, and drilled into the locals from childhood. And, besides, Cameron's 4x4 was found comparatively nearby, stocked with food and water, and with a radio to call for help. Surely he couldn't have just wandered off, and got lost? Nathan can't believe his brother would have made such a mistake, nor have chosen this horrific way of taking his own life.

This isn't a classic detective story. The police aren't concerned about the circumstances surrounding Cameron's death. Most of his family, despite being in shock and grieving, seem happy to accept the police verdict. Nathan alone seems to have doubts.

Despite having always lived in the area Nathan is an outsider. He set up on his own ranch when he got married, and since his wife left him has lived a completely solitary life, with occasional visits from his son, Xander, and irregular contact with his family - despite being neighbours, they live three hours apart. Now, in the period up to Cam's funeral, he's forced to stay with them, and gradually comes to see they're not quite how they appeared from a distance. Cameron has certainly been hiding nasty secrets beneath a pleasant appearance, but would any of these things be enough to kill him for?

The Lost Man is certainly a compelling read - I picked it up again while writing this review to check a few details, and got sucked into re-reading far more than necessary - but what lingers in my mind is the depiction of these remote cattle stations, small oases in the middle of an arid landscape, the isolation of the families living there, easily not seeing 'outsiders' for weeks at a stretch, and in Nathan's case not seeing ANYONE. It's a way of life that seems impossible to cope with, and one in which dark deeds can easily be hidden.

When Cameron Bright is found dead in the Australian wilderness miles from his car, his brother Nathan is determined to find out what happened. But what secrets are lurking in the outback?

I was really eager to read The Lost Man. It’s had a lot of pre-release excitement, 5 star reviews and even was a LibraryReads selection for Feb 2019. I was quite disappointed therefore, to have to give it a low star rating. I’ll start with the positives; the setting is a great choice. Deep in the cattle fields of rural Australia, Jane Harper is able to capture both the crippling isolation and also the claustrophobic air of being trapped with those around us with no escape. The writing style is a great accompaniment to this and the descriptions and feeling portrayed within the book made you feel like you are there with the characters.

That said I found the book incredibly slow-paced and drawn out which ruined my enjoyment of it. Although the family dynamics are interesting and I wanted to find out what happened to Cameron the sheer amount of time it took to get to anything concrete was far too long. There’s so much backstory and flashback that actually you only really start to find out what was going on right at the end, making all of the rest of the story feel a little irrelevant. The reveal in the ending left me with unanswered questions – mainly as to how it took so long for the truth to come out and surely most characters already knew or could guess what had happened? This is actually my first Jane Harper book and it sounds like other books of hers are similar in style so perhaps if I had known what I was getting into to start with I could have enjoyed it a little more.

Overall it’s a setting that will stay with you long after you put the book down – I just wish it had a plot to match. Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for a chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Man oh man, Jane Harper just keeps getting better and better. She is fast becoming one of my favourite writers and it is at the point now where I don’t even look at the synopsis, I just read the book and know it will be brilliant. Because of this I didn’t really know what The Lost Man was about and expected it to feature Aaron Falk, protagonist of both of her previous novels; The Dry and Force of Nature and was surprised to find that this was a standalone.

In this book the titular Lost Man is Cameron, middle child of the Bright brothers. He is found next to a grave in the middle of Australia’s unforgiving outback after his body was spotted from the air by a pilot in a helicopter. The alert is sounded over the radio system and is heard by Bub, youngest of the Bright siblings and so it is he that drives out to the Stockman’s grave, a place of myth and legend, and finds the body of his brother. When eldest son, Nathan, arrives the next morning Bub has kept guard over their brother, protecting him from wild animals whilst the ambulance and police make their way to Cameron’s resting place. He has died hundreds of miles from anywhere, his car, filled with food and water, is 9 kilometres away, and with the nearest town being a half a day’s drive at least, Nathan cannot understand how Cameron came to be there.

Our protagonist is Nathan, a divorcee whose son, Xander is staying with him for Christmas. He is a brilliant character, flawed, strong, taciturn and with a past that has deeply impacted his present. The Lost Man is most definitely a character driven novel and it is through Nathan that we discover what led to Cameron’s death. Some things just don’t add up and when Nathan finds that Cameron was troubled in the months leading up to his death he realises that he didn’t know his brother after all.

A book about relationships and family The Lost Man is an examination of regret, familial duty, love and the damage which secrets and resentment can inflict. The immediate mystery of Cameron’s death makes way for more mysteries to emerge; why won’t Nathan go to the town and why has it been such a long time since he saw his family? These mysteries are slowly unpicked revealing long held secrets and difficult truths to reveal a conclusion which was as satisfying as it was surprising.

Set against the backdrop of a searing summer heat which seeps from every page The Lost Man is another masterclass in creating a sense of place by Jane Harper. Nobody writes this stuff as well as she does. I read this book as the snow swirled outside and yet, I felt I was sweltering in the Australian outback covered in the red dust from the scorched land. The outback is an expansive, huge land which is written about with such beauty and scale that I could imagine myself standing outside a farmhouse, under the heat of the summer sun and being the only human for hundreds of miles.

I love and adored the Aaron Falk novels (and think I may have spotted a reference to him in The Lost Man) but The Lost Man is another level entirely. Jane Harper is really hitting her stride and this book was my favourite of the three. From the opening, spine tingling pages to the quietly devastating denouement I was utterly transfixed with the Bright family and this small, closed community.

Overall opinion of the book:

After reading and thoroughly enjoying Force of Nature for last year’s blog tour (#gifted), I was eagerly waiting to read Harper’s first stand alone book, The Lost Man, and it didn’t disappoint. Jane Harper has a fantastic writing style, creating deeply eerie, atmospheric moments and unforgettable plot twists.

As the synopses explains, the book begins with the death of Nathan and Bub’s brother, Cameron. The body was found stranded in the infamous landmark, The Stockman’s Grave, eerily placed on a road which not many people pass through. Set in the Australian outback, Harper brings its loneliness and vast land to life and depicts fantastic imagery to readers. Her ability to world build and explain nature is fantastic and leaves the reader with a clear sense of place. This is definitely one of my favourite aspects of her writing.

The plot is fairly slow placed and shrouded in mystery. It follows Cameron’s family, mainly his brother Nathan and his son Xander, on their journey to uncover what happened to his brother. With the police station being over three hours away from their house and land, with not many people around to be seen as suspects, Nathan is left questioning whether or not his brother committed suicide. As the plot unravels, ulterior motives and secrets are revealed that I didn’t see coming. As ever, Harper left me shocked by some of the content as I thought I had figured out what had happened only to be proven wrong. This is definitely a sign of a great thriller. There’s so much I could discuss about the intricate plot details that I thought were great, but I want to keep this review spoiler free to not ruin the book for you!

Another of Harper’s strengths is her brilliant character development skills. Although the main plot focuses on what happened to Cameron, it also delves deeply into the family’s dynamics and history. It was interesting to read their back stories and how it led characters to do certain things and act in certain ways. If anything, it emphasises that families are far from perfect and often there’s a lot more that goes on behind the scenes that people may not be aware of; some of which is often devious or dangerous. I was particularly interested in reading about the brother’s relationships with each other and also with their mother and father.

The Lost Man discusses real life issues that affect many families, such as divorce, infidelity, health issues, mental health, loneliness, regret, emotional and physical abuse. Although raw to read at times, it handles these topics in a sensitive and honest manner. explaining the deep physiological affects it can have on the family dynamic.

It did take me slightly longer to become engrossed in The Lost Man, compared to Force of Nature, but after around 3 or so chapters I was hooked and intrigued to find out what happened. Nathan was no detective, and I’m thrilled with how Harper had him uncovering the plot. She does it in a way which seems natural, rather than treating him as a character who is a professional case solver. It’s clear when reading that he’s just a confused, grieving brother and the solving part of the plot is not forced in any way. I would definitely recommend giving The Lost Man a read, especially if you’ve enjoyed Harper’s previous books or like thrillers in general, you won’t be disappointed!

Before I finish this review I just want to mention that the book does discuss emotional and physical abuse and also rape in some detail. Please be mindful of this if you are triggered by this content.

Final thoughts:

I would certainly recommend The Lost Man to anyone that enjoys mystery and thrillers. Being set in the vast Australian outback it’s unlike anything I’ve read before. Deeply atmospheric and eerie, Harper has created a story with many unexpected plot twists and complex family relationships.

It’s a book that will draw you in and Harper’s superb writing style and natural flair for writing thrillers is shown again. Although this is quite different to her previous two novels, The Dry and Force of Nature it’s such an intriguing read – I’m sure you will enjoy it just as much!

The Australian outback, the stockman’s grave stands isolated. The last resting place occasionally attracts visitors but today two brothers stand over the grave. Because lying dead at the grave is their brother.
Cameron abandoned his car miles away, and seemingly walked across the outback to die at the stockman’s grave, walking into the middle of nowhere. Did he commit suicide? With no obvious reason and many simpler ways to achieve the same end, his family is at a loss to understand what happened.
But the family has secrets. And as the sun beats down, those secrets begin to be revealed…
Haven’t done a blog tour for a while, so when I was asked to take part in this one, I was happy to agree. I loved Jane Harper’s debut, The Dry, and while I thought the follow up, Force of Nature, was a little weaker, it was still a powerful read. And the set-up to this seemed intriguing, a classic mystery set-up.
It’s a strong read, on a par with The Dry. A standalone mystery, the nature of the outback life enables the police characters to step back after the initial enquiry to allow the family, with Nathan in particular, to get to the bottom of what happened to Cam – indeed what has been happening to the many family members over the past few years and the past few days.
As you might expect, this isn’t a classic whodunit, but an effective thriller that slowly builds the sense of mystery and tension. The characters are believable, distinctive and well-constructed and the reader finds themselves drawn into the mystery.
The conclusion, while not really a clued mystery, is effective and contains a genuine surprise, to me at least.
A great read, maybe not for the classic mystery fan but certainly for those who like a thoughtful emotional thriller.

The Dry by Jane Harper

Jane Harper has now become one of those novelists whose new books I eagerly anticipate. I loved The Dry, her first novel published in 2017, set in the Australian outback and full of compelling characters, but of course this might have been a one-off. And then in 2018 A Force of Nature was published which took the fascinating premise of a woman going missing from a corporate team building hike through the wilderness. It was magnificent. And now we have A Lost Man, which is wonderful and completely different in its plot again – a man’s body is found in a remote and eerie spot and it’s up to his older, and somewhat estranged brother, to try to make sense of what happened.

A Lost Man recreates much of the atmosphere, isolation and layers of character complexity of the earlier novels but with new characters facing different dilemmas. We, as the reader, learn more as the layers of the onion unfold just as the main character does and the plot unfolds in unexpected and revelatory ways.

We are left guessing who was the Lost Man as it could in fact represent arguably any of the characters, but primarily of course the dead man, who was lost in many ways, and the brother who in the course of the story comes to realise how lost he has been.

I would wholeheartedly recommend Jane Harper and The Lost Man to anyone who enjoys great writing, complex characters, intriguing premises and evocative settings.

I loved Jane's last book, but this one blew me away. I absolutely adored it, it pulled me in and had me going with the flow of things, and I loved picking little things up throughout and wondering if it would have anything to do with the main plot line or not.
I definitely connected with the single POV in the book, which is unusual as I'm not usually the best with male narrators, but this book was so well written it was hard not to connect in some way.
Definitely an amazing book, I know that I'll be reading anything else the author brings out, and I really want to get round to reading The Dry soon!

Having read and greatly enjoyed Jane Harper's two previous novels, The Dry and Force of Nature, I jumped at the chance to be part of the blog tour for her third book, The Lost Man!

Whilst still set amidst the sun-bleached landscapes of Australia, The Lost Man is slightly different from her previous two books in that it doesn't feature protagonist Aaron Falk (although there is a very cleverly hidden reference to him in the book for keen-eyed readers to spot!). Whilst you certainly didn't need to have read The Dry to appreciate Force of Nature, this makes The Lost Man a complete standalone and has given Harper scope to experiment with a slightly darker tone to produce, in my humble opinion, her best book yet. 

The Lost Man centres on the Bright family, cattle farmers in the remote Australian outback. Nathan, eldest of the Bright brothers and ostracised from both his family and his community as a result of a terrible decision made years before, is reluctantly pulled from his isolated existence when his brother, Cameron, is found dead. Dying of heat exhaustion and exposure in the middle of the Australian summer is not in itself surprising - this is a landscape that kills the unwary without mercy.  But when Cameron's car is found several kilometres away from his body, filled with plenty of water and several days worth of supplies, Nathan begins to question why his brother would have walked into the wilderness - and whether he had help.

Thus begins a gradual unravelling of family secrets, spiralling into the past and causing troubled memories to resurface that send ripples through Nathan's remote outback community.

I really took to Nathan as a narrator. His gruff, awkward outward demeanour belies a contemplative and considerate nature and, even when the awful truth of his past mistakes are revealed, you can't help but empathise with him. One of the main strengths of the book is the gradual revealing and development of Nathan's character, as he begins to step out from the shadows of his past and look towards future possibilities. As Nathan begins to unravel the truth behind Cameron's death, he has to explore long-neglected relationships and decide who he can trust amidst the small list of suspects. And, as the reader, you're right there alongside him, putting together seemingly incidental pieces of information and pulling them into a cohesive narrative that eventually leads to the real reason Cameron Bright ended up dying so slowly and painfully out at the stockman's grave. 

The supporting cast are equally well realised and, as the novel progresses, you get a real sense of the shifting family dynamics and divided loyalties at play within the Bright family. Harper is fantastic at developing rounded characters and all of her characters feel like real people, with strengths and flaws. Good guys and bad guys are in short supply in The Lost Man. Instead you have people making choices; some good, some bad and some terrible. 

The final character worthy of note is the outback itself. Harper has utterly captured the harsh yet beautiful landscape in which her story is set. From the searing dust of an outback morning to the cool balm of nighttime air, you can practically feel the heat rising from each page. The thin line between life and death in this beautiful but deadly landscape is bought fully to life in the book, and getting a glimpse into the struggle to maintain life amidst such a harsh climate was a fascinating aspect of the book. 

As you can probably guess from the emphasis on character and setting, this is a slow burn of a book. The first third takes its time to set up the characters and the place, drip-feeding information gradually. The plot picks up pace about halfway in and I devoured the last third late at night, determined not to finish until I'd reached the end. So there's a definite compulsion to the narrative but I wouldn't necessarily call The Lost Man a page-turner. It's a book that rewards considered reading and will be most appreciated by readers who want a well-written, compelling narrative with added depth. Fans of The Dry and Force of Nature will not be disappointed with The Lost Man and, with its mesmeric setting, entrancing narrative twists and absorbing characters, I very much hope that the book will bring a host of new readers to her work.

Two brothers meet at the site of the stockmans grave, a grave in the middle of nowhere which is the stuff of legends. A body has been found there which turns out to be their brother Cameron. But why is he there and how did he get here? Nathan has a complicated history with Cameron and the neighbours. There is a lot of secrets and grudges under the surface. But he believes that Cameron didn't willingly travel to his death, he was familiar with the terrain and when they find his jeep they see he had all the necessary tolls to help himself. So what has happened?
Yet again Jane Harper has told a fantastic story. The creation of the hard, hot and unforgiving land in the Outback that this family lives in is almost a character itself. The descriptions of the surrounding countryside and the vast terrains lends a haunting backdrop to this mystery. I cannot wait for her next book!!!
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I love, I really do love Jane Harper’s novels. Once I start reading one of her books, I can’t put it down. The Dry made me a big fan of this author and Force of Nature reinforced my admiration, and after THE LOST MAN there is no going back… Jane Harper is definetely one of my favourite authors.

Set in the dry and hot Australian landscape, THE LOST MAN is the story of the three Bright brothers, Nathan, Cam, and Bub. When Cam is found dead of dehydration, some thinks it’s suicide, others think it was an accident, but Nathan thinks there is more to it and he finds himself investigating the members of his family. Through Nathan’s memories, family secrets, resentment, and a past of abuse come to light helping Nathan figure out what really happened to his brother.

THE LOST MAN is slow-paced and character-driven, it’s an emotional and compelling novel. Some of the characters are more likable than others, but they are all engaging and well-developed. Jane Harper’s excellent writing style and attention to details keeps the reader glued to the pages and she manages to keep the suspense always high and you never know what to expect next. As one who reads many, many, maybe too many, mystery novels, I am happy that I am ways taken by surprise and that I never know what to expect in Jane Harper’s novels.

I find the Australian landscape fascinating: so hot, dangerous, unfamiliar, and claustrophobic. The heat, the dust storms, and the isolation make for an uninhabitable place, but thanks to the author’s beautiful descriptions, the Australian outback comes to life through the pages.

Jane Harper did it again. She wrote a superb, unique, and compulsive novel set in the Australian outback, a story of family, abuse, forgiveness, and relationship that kept me completely captivated. If you haven’t read Jane Harper’s novel, what are you waiting for?

I read and loved Force of Nature by Jane Harper last year, so I was thrilled to be offered a Netgalley copy of this book for review and this blog tour. I had really high hopes for another great crime novel, and this didn't disappoint. It starts off with a creepy tale about a lonely grave in the middle of nowhere and a family finding one of their number (Cameron) dead out by the grave. There are no signs of wrongdoing, but no explanation for why Cameron would have been out there at that time, exposed to the elements without the supplies he would know he required. There's a lot of atmosphere in this book, the landscape is dry, angry and brutal to those who don't treat it with respect. I loved the involvement of nature in this book, and what it added to the story.

"They lived in a land of extremes in more ways than one. People were either completely fine, or very not. There was little middle ground."

Nathan is one of the "very not" fine. He is living alone slightly apart from his family, he is separated from his wife and his son visits on holidays but doesn't always seem like he wants to be there. He is barred from entering parts of the town because of his past actions, so is very much an isolated character. He is also really intriguing; Nathan is hiding a lot of secrets. His dead brother was also hiding a lot of secrets and I loved the slow reveal of all of these as the story went on.

A lot of the people in this book are hiding things, making it virtually impossible to guess at who was involved in Cameron's death, and I suspected just about every character at some point. The ending was not at all what I expected it to be and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it. If you have read this already, then please let me know what you thought!

The Lost Man is a very cleverly written, atmospheric book, filled with secrets and intrigue. Definitely one to read for any crime lovers!