BOOK REVIEW - ANOTHER OUTBACK STORY BY JANE HARPER

JANE HARPER, THE DRY, FORCE OF NATURE AND NOW, THE LOST MAN.

A Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller the front cover pronounces. It's not that I needed that quote as I have read two of her ‘outback’ books before. The Lost Man by Jane Harper matches in stature her previous two. She is a great story-teller.

Set in Australia in an immense area of hardship, extreme heat and loneliness. Families live there too and the way the interactions are formulated is very interesting to the point of being intense!

The story is mainly confined, to within the family, but that's a ridiculous comment as this outback farm is set in an area the size of Wales! The distances, burning glaring sun, wind driven sand and grit makes this a tough place to live. It's what it can do to people that add dimensions to her story that can be uncomfortable to live with. It's the location that drives the story on quickly.

Jane Harper takes a myth, maybe a legend, or even a bar-told-story and uses it for a focal point. Then she wraps it around her fingers and adds layers to it to finish up with a story as good as this one. But, for me, it is the telling that makes it a great read.

She acknowledges those that gave her the skeleton on which she hangs it all. There was a lot of research that prefaced her writing. As a footnote ‘The Dry’, her first book, has a script worthy of a film.