"The Lost Man" by Jane Harper. (Macmillan, unabridged, 11 hours.)
Like its predecessors, Jane Harper's third novel is set in Australia — this time on a remote cattle station in the Outback, where Cameron has been found dead near an old gravestone far from the homestead and 8 kilometers from his car.
This is cruel, sun-blasted terrain that will kill a man without water or shade in less than a day. Why did Cameron wander away from his vehicle, well stocked as it was with supplies? The solution lies in the past, secrets from which emerge slowly, shedding light on the characters and relationships of his two brothers, wife, mother, deceased father and others.
And what of the young Englishwoman Cameron may or may not have raped in his youth? The answers are shocking and believable.
The novel's strong sense of place and personality is handily conveyed by Australian voice actor Stephen Shanahan, who narrates this thoroughly engrossing book in a no-nonsense Aussie accent.
"Good Riddance," by Elinor Lipman. (Dreamscape, unabridged, 8 hours.)
Elinor Lipman's latest comic romp begins with Daphne Maritch decluttering her cramped Manhattan apartment and discarding her late mother June's cherished possession, the 1968 high school yearbook for which she was adviser as a 23-year-old teacher.
Over the years June attended every class reunion, annotating the student photos with generally catty — and a few mysterious — remarks. The yearbook is snapped up from the building's recycling bin by would-be documentary filmmaker Geneva Wisenkorn, intent on making a film on the subsequent fates of the students, now in their 60s.
Daphne objects; Geneva doggedly holds on to the book — and soon scandalous secrets from the past erupt, generating a vastly entertaining screwball comedy held together with improbabilities.
Mia Barron delivers the tale in a pleasant, low-pitched, faintly rueful voice — entirely in tune with Daphne's predicament. Witty, dippy and daft, "Good Riddance" is a genuine guilty pleasure.
"How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States," by Daniel Immerwahr. (Recorded Books, unabridged, 17½ hours.)
Narrator Luis Moreno delivers Daniel Immerwahr's sprawling, fascinating book in a calm, teacherly voice. Here we find a United States whose territory extends far beyond what we see in the familiar map. This is a tale of acquisition and expanding borders, of wresting land from indigenous peoples.
Moving through history and from topic to topic, Immerwahr covers a wide variety of subjects — including experimentation with drugs on subject populations, the use of torture against dissidents and rebels, the proliferation of U.S. military bases and stations around the globe and the dominance of the English language in computer coding.
For all the depressing material, the book is lively and revelatory in identifying the connections that created and bind the American empire.
Katherine A. Powers, a Minnesota native, reviews for the Wall Street Journal, the Star Tribune and elsewhere. She writes this column monthly for the Washington Post.
