INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Two brothers meet in the remote Australian outback when the third brother is found dead, in this stunning new standalone novel from Jane Harper Brothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet. In an isolated … lies dead at their feet.
In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another’s nearest neighbors. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. But something made him head out alone under the unrelenting sun.
Nathan, Bub and Nathan’s son return to Cameron’s ranch and to those left behind by his passing: his wife, his daughters, and his mother, as well as their long-time employee and two recently hired seasonal workers.
While they grieve Cameron’s loss, suspicion starts to take hold, and Nathan is forced to examine secrets the family would rather leave in the past. Because if someone forced Cameron to his death, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects.
A powerful and brutal story of suspense set against a formidable landscape, The Lost Man confirms Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature, is one of the best new voices in writing today.
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If you don’t know what living in isolation is, like on the Australian outback, you will after this book.
A very well-written detective novel that lets you enter fully into Australia and a different life. A ranching life. A hot, dusty, difficult life full of domestic violence. And what happened, by the way, with the recent Australian elections? In the face of drought and wildlfire and the Great Barrier Reef dying–they vote in a conservative government uninterested in reducing carbon emissions? As America did, too. As we did, too. Last October, 2018, the UN’s Panel on Climate Change, the world’s most respected scientists, reported that humans had a decade to curb carbon emissions and keep global warming to a difficult 1.5 degrees Celsius rather than a much more catastrophic 2 degrees Celsius. You’ll think about this as you read this book.
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I loved her first two, but I couldn’t get into this one. Hopefully, she writes more in her Aaron Faulk series.
I found this mystery set in the Australian desert very interesting and very well written. The story is unique and the plot unfolds at just the right pace with a great ending.
After reading “The Dry,” I just had to read more by Harper. “The Lost Man” is terrific. The setting on a station (huge ranch) in Australia makes for some fascinating information about life there, and the story is compelling. I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon riveted to this book, and my husband will be reading it next. (He also loved “The Dry.”)
This is Harper’s third novel and she just keeps getting better. A puzzling death is investigated around many slowly-emerging truths from the past. Set again in the Australian outback, this novel covers family relationships and secrets, made all the more intense because of the isolation of the family homestead and their misguided loyalties. It seems we can never really know anyone, even if they are close family.
An excellent read and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who enjoys clever plotting and fascinating characters.
Couldn’t put it down!!
Two brothers find a third brother dead deep in Australia. That’s a broad discription. I found this book slow to get started and than wound up with a predictable ending. It is a good book but she blew me away with “The Dry”, so perhaps I was expecting too much.
This book details what it’s like to live in the vast, isolated, treacherous Australian outback, and shows us that nobody outside of a family can know the secrets hidden within. Excellent character and place descriptions. I believe this is Harper’s best book yet.
This novel was intense. The author has created characters that will stick with you and her descriptions of the setting made me feel like I was there. This was a character-driven novel that I stuck with me, and, though I finished, I wanted to go back for more. This was also my first (successful) audio book. I listened, enthralled, as the narrator spun the tale around me. Stephen Shanahan was the perfect choice to narrate this book. Shanahan’s narrating pulled me into the story and new-to-me author, Jane Harper‘s writing kept me there.
There was mystery, as Nathan tried to unravel how Cameron ended up where he did; but this was more a look into the Bright Family and how they all ended up where they were in life.
I am usually one who prefers to be the one reading a book, but, in this case, I am happy I go t the chance to listen to it. Either way, this is one to give a read (or a listen).
#TheLostMan #MacmillanAudio #JaneHarper
There are few authors who can turn the Australian landscape into a character in its own right, the way Harper does. In The Lost Man the outback is both vast and claustrophobic as the death of a family member on a remote cattle stations raises secrets both old and new… (This is a stand alone story, not involving Falk – her protgatonist from the previous 2 books).
Jane Harper combines a phenomenal sense of place and character-driven stories that are also real page turners. Great combination.
Great read and a surprising ending
A great book. I love Jane Harper’s books and this is her best so far.
I pre-ordered the book because I’m a fan of Harper. She didn’t disappoint.
I read this book in one sitting.
Never saw the ending coming…..like the other Jane Harper books a complete surprise.
A character-driven story of family and strife in the Australian outback. Three brothers living close to each other if you count the three-hour distance and not seeing each other for months meet at a gravestone by the fence line between the brother’s lands. This begins the story of the brothers and the unraveling of family secrets. Full with memories of growing up in isolation and wilderness, the present meets the past in true Jane Harper form. A story which is filled with grief, mistakes, and wishes it will take the living brothers through memories past and present that will bring this story of life and death with few suspects to a satisfying closure.
A man is found dead by the weathered gravestone of an old stockman in the heat of the Australian outback. What was he doing out there without water or transport? No signs of a struggle or murder. A few miles away, his vehicle, fully equipped with food and water, is found. Why did he abandon it and travel on foot in the scorching temperatures?
This is a story that unfolds slowly and achingly as a cattle farming family comes to terms with the unexplained death of Cameron, the middle of three brothers, the week before Christmas.
This is Australia’s outback – vast distances, unrelenting heat, flooding once a year and small town communities, often several hours away by car. It’s a place that shapes the people who live and work there. But those people have grown to become part of outback. One detective, one medic, covering thousands of square miles. Nothing happens quickly out here.
As one small clue is uncovered after another, the darker side of Cameron’s life, the relationships with a tyrannical father, and past secrets slowly come to light, changing opinions and perceptions to ultimately reveal the truth about the man and how he died.
The story is beautifully described and delivered, showing the hardships endured by these people, the tensions within families, often isolated from others for months, and the past secrets that come to the surface when tragedy strikes.
It’s a haunting story that slowly grips you and draws you in, refusing to let you go until the final page.
If you’re looking for something a little different, something that’s beautifully crafted, driven by characters and secrets, you won’t be disappointed. This is the perfect antidote to formulaic police procedurals
This story was a constant reveal – the characters and relationships we think we understand at the beginning evolve along with the story up until the very end. A compelling page-turner with constant surprises.