Deep in the Australian outback lives the Bright clan. Older brother Nathan, a divorcee, lives alone on a small ranch; brothers Cameron and Bub share the larger ranch, where they live with their mother Liz, Cameron’s wife Ilse and their two young daughters. Each has their own demons to face but all in all, they make things work in the scorching climate of the Outback. Until one morning, when Cameron’s body is discovered near an old marker; a century-old grave. The man has been stuck there and has died of thirst. Cameron has lived in the Outback all his life and knew how to keep himself safe, so how has he ended up all alone out there?
Was there ever a more perfect name than the Outback? It seems archetypical of dry, direct Australian humour to refer to an area the size of a medium-sized nation with one of the most extreme climates one could think of as, basically, the backyard. It’s an original setting for a thriller, but a surprisingly effective one too: the number of suspects is limited, but the landscape features as the true antagonist here. It looms over the characters, its dust creeps into their clothes as soon as they set foot outside. It is a constant companion, and a needy one at that, one that demands the use of satellites and cold rooms where months worth of food can be stored. Pickup trucks are loaded with several spare tires, gallons of water, tins of food, cans of petrol, even for the most mundane outings. A trip to the nearest small town is three hours one way. As someone who lives in the Netherlands, a country one could drive through in that amount of time, this is unfathomable. It’s an alien world, and not a particularly welcoming one; all the characters, one way or another, suffer from the isolation, whether they want to admit it or not.
It can be hard to find crime fiction that hits that sweet spot between literature and page-turner; I have a few go-to authors, but Jane Harper is quickly becoming my new favourite. Mostly, the characters she writes are layered. They feel real. They’re not perfect, but they’re generally likeable, they behave in rational ways (not exactly a given in the genre). Harper’s written three books about Aaron Falk, and I was sure I was going to miss him in this book, but Nathan’s a likeable protagonist. He suffers from depression, something that is clear to everyone but himself; it’s hard for him to face his demons. His son Xander, who only sees his father a few times per year, is smart, socially adept and infinitely kind, and it’s refreshing to see a teenager written that way. The other characters, too, all feel so real you’d almost expect them to step off the page.
The most impressive thing here is how Harper manages to keep the plot going, etch out the characters and their interpersonal relationships, and keep the reader guessing with deft brush strokes. The novel is never lost in endless preponderances on the one hand or cheap jumpscares on the other. The prose is as effective as I’ve ever seen it. The denouement is perfect. It doesn’t go for shock value; we see Nathan slowly come to the conclusion that some people in his life simply aren’t who they say they are, or how he sees them. It’s a powerful statement, painful but apt.
It’s the perfect book to curl up with on a beach or a rainy Sunday afternoon, but it lingers, too. It’s perfect, really; I have no notes.
