The Lost Man by Jane Harper - Book Review

My home town of Adelaide has been HOT these past few weeks, reaching as high as 46.6C (116F) to become Australia’s hottest capital city on record. 

 So I’m thinking Jane Harper will feel right at home weather-wise when she visits in March for Adelaide Writers' Week (I’m hoping to take the morning off work – any other Adelaideans planning to attend too?) 

Harper’s latest book, The Lost Man, reaches similar temperatures set in the relentless heat of a remote station in the vast Australian outback. She writes with a vivid sense of place and her depiction of distance, space, heat, isolation and loneliness oozed into my pores as I read this book, adding to the mystery as it unfolded.

Synopsis from Pan MacMillan Australia: The man lay still in the centre of a dusty grave under a monstrous sky.

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...

Happy reading!