The circle was far from perfect, with a distorted edge that grew thick, then thin, and broke completely in places. Read moreįrom above, from a distance, the marks in the dust formed a tight circle.

Because if someone forced Cameron to his death, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects.Ī 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. 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.

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. But something made him head out alone under the unrelenting sun. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another’s nearest neighbors. Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet. Two brothers meet in the remote Australian outback when the third brother is found dead, in this stunning new standalone novel from Jane Harperīrothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. (Feb.'I love Jane Harper's Australia-based mysteries.' -Stephen King 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. In the grim journey that follows, the surviving members of the Bright family must confront some devastating secrets. 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. 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. 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. 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).

The lost man harper