It’s one of those books that actually start around - a bit dull, then all at once enthralling. She followed it up with a weaker but readable sequel featuring some of the same cast, and now, in “The Lost Man,” has written a stand-alone mystery. A gifted, laconic former journalist from Australia, Harper made her debut in 2016 with a dazzler called “The Dry,” about a farming community that had been waiting two years for rain. Take Jane Harper’s THE LOST MAN (Flatiron, $27.99). There are great books that begin slowly, the authors talking themselves uncertainly toward their material before suddenly they find it and the intensity increases, the options narrow, the risk heightens: The final report comes in. On the other hand, we don’t know the ending yet. We may have to concede that while truth is indeed stranger than fiction, fiction is substantially better arranged. Who knew a thriller could be this boring! Felonies, hush money, Russian agents, dogged journalists - in real time, it turns out, all that stuff moves like molasses, with none of the subtle internal coherence you find in a good novel of suspense.
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