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The best thrillers of 2019 – review roundup

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/03/thrillers-year-alison-flood-harper-hammer-heller-mckinty-mina-paver

Death in the Australian outback, a kidnap chain, vengeance of a betrayed spouse, and a spooky tale of medieval mysticism are the pick of the year

I read Jane Harper’s The Lost Man (Little, Brown) in February, the height of Australia’s summer but the depths of the English winter. The central image at the heart of the novel, of a man who has perished in the punishing heat of Australia’s outback, hours from anywhere, has stayed with me ever since. Just as good – perhaps even better – than Harper’s excellent thrillers The Dry and Force of Nature, this follows a small cast in a vast, terrifyingly empty setting, as the dead man’s eldest brother tries to determine whether his sibling deliberately walked out to his death or if a malign third party was involved.

Aussie noir – or as it has also been dubbed, “bush noir” – is my new favourite genre, and if you like Harper, try Chris Hammer’s Scrublands (Wildfire), in which a community permanently threatened by bush fires tries to understand why its young priest turned a gun on his congregation.

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