There is no superlative quite strong enough to describe just how brilliant The Lost Man is. Jane Harper's third novel held me completely in its spell from start to finish and I felt quite bereft at putting it down for the last time.
At the heart of The Lost Man is a tight, perfectly constructed mystery at its core: how did a popular, healthy, seemingly contented family man, one with intricate knowledge of the dangers of the Australian outback end up dying of dehydration just a few kilometres from his own vehicle which contained everything he needed to survive?
With no signs that Cam Bright died of anything other than exposure to the outback's extreme environment, his death baffles his family and local health and law officials.
Cam's brother Nathan, who runs the neighbouring farm to the family-owned Burley Downs that the dead man controlled, is the focal point of the story as he looks to try to understand his brother's death.
What unfolds is a story of family, of relationships, of secrets and lies and of the struggle for survival in the vast loneliness of the outback. Harper handles her material brilliantly, building her characters with sensitivity and nuance. She unpicks the inexplicable death of Cam Bright with a steady unerring narrative that was rarely predictable but always felt authentic.
Harper's depiction of remote small town Australia and the looming and threatening emptiness of the outback was a feature of her brilliant debut The Dry. Here, where it was so utterly essential to the plot, the environment took on an almost human persona - a living, breathing presence, as if it were a third person in every other relationship depicted.
This is as close to the perfect novel as I can remember reading. Truly outstanding.