The Lost Man

Since they have not heard from their brother Cameron who was due to meet them, Nathan and Bub set out for the remote border of their land in the Australian outback. They find Cameron dead, obviously from dehydration and close to the grave of the legendary stockman. His car about 9 miles away. The whole scene doesn’t make sense to them, yet, there must be a reason. When they return home, the news is greeted with silence, nobody really seems to be too sad, but nobody wants to tell Nathan what had happened the weeks before, obviously, there was something that had troubled Cameron. The deeper Nathan digs, the more secrets he uncovers that had been buried for a long time. I have read novels from Jane Harper before and had certain expectations. “The Lost Man” however, did not make it easy for me. I expected some crime novel with a lot of suspense, but it took more than two thirds into the novel until I finally found it interesting and at least a bit exciting. What made it most difficult was the fact that I hated all the characters. None of them was sympathetic and I was always fighting internally whom to hate most. We mainly meet elderly men, frustrated, eaten away by hatred and therefore harassing the people around them. It was just awful to follow them when they recklessly and egoistically do their own thing. More than once was I close to giving up because I didn’t see any progress in the plot and hardly could stand the characters’ lamentations. Looking at it from the end, there is a clever crime plot that I could really appreciate, but it is a very long and hard way to get there. The novel certainly transports the hardship of farmers in the far away outback.