A fifth is a work in progress after having seen The Dry turned into a movie success.Īgree, very atmospheric books, although Force of Nature was a bit of a letdown and The Lost Man tended to go walkabout without reason every now and then. And between The Dry and The Lost Man there was Force of Nature. The answer is The Survivors, already out. “I can’t wait to see what Jane Harper comes up with next”. I can’t wait to see what Jane Harper comes up with next.
The Lost Man was the best mystery I’ve read this year and possibly one of the best books as well. People you can recognise, sympathise with, yell at and most importantly people you can engage with and care about. They all felt like real people, who make mistakes, behave irrationally, take bad decisions. It’s a wonderful, poignant story of missed opportunities, regrets, abuse and loneliness.
In some ways, The Lost Man bears more resemblance to a family drama than to a mystery. And some of this luggage affects events happening in the present time. Also, events from the past are revealed little by little. Gradually, we learn about the complex dynamics between family members and experience how living in the brutal environment affects the characters mentally. It is dismissed as a possible suicide, even if both the family and the police feel something isn’t right. It all kicks off with Cameron being found dead on his grounds, away from his car. I felt the relentless sun baking down on me and even had to check my water supplies. Like in The Dry, Jane Harper’s writing is descriptive and evocative to the extent that I was completely transported from London and mediocre temperatures to the dry, unforgiving outback, where nobody survives for long if getting lost.
The story is set in the outback of Queensland, Australia, where both Nathan and his brother Cameron own wast cattle farms, where you can drive for miles without seeing a living soul. Her debut The Dry was enjoyable, but The Lost Man is in a different league altogether. With The Lost Man, Jane Harper could very well join these two favourite authors. James are some of my favourite authors within this corner of crime fiction. When reading my favourite mysteries, I regularly forget about the mystery at hand, because I get so immersed in the stories of the individual characters. No, it’s the slow, character driven stories, which appeal the most. However, I am not a big fan of modern crime thrillers with a twist on every other page and an abundance of unreliable narrators. I love crime fiction! Even if I’ve diversified my reading in recent years, I always return to this genre.
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