The isolation has harboured secrets that have managed to remain buried, or at least unacknowledged, for years. There is, inevitably, something not quite right with the Bright family. This is a slow-moving book, there are no big chases or overt threats, rather there is the threat of something under the surface as the reader is unsure who to trust or who has the most to hide. So there is something of a closed room mystery about The Lost Man, even though the death of Cameron Bright happens in the wide open air. Here your nearest neighbour is 3 hours away. Nothing for miles around but parched land and the odd cow. The environment is as much of a character as the humans who inhabit it. There is something hauntingly claustrophobic about the outback, at least when Jane Harper portrays it. Did he choose to walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects… The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish.
But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old that no one can remember who is buried there. In an isolated part of Australia, they are each other’s nearest neighbour, their homes hours apart. Two brothers meet at the remote border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of the outback.
Whatever had been going through Cameron’s mind when he was alive, he didn’t look peaceful in death. He had started to remove his clothes as logic had deserted him, and his skin was cracked.
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