Force of Nature - Jane Harper

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

First Paragraph(s):

Later, the four remaining women could fully agree on only two things.  One:  No one saw the bushland swallow up Alice Russell.  And two:  Alice had a mean streak so sharp it could cut you.

The women were late to the rendezvous point.

My Thoughts:

After enjoying Jane Harper's first book, The Dry, last year, I was excited to see another crime novel featuring Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk.  I did like him.  I've listened to both books on audio with Stephen Shanahan as narrator - he does a great job.  Force of Nature takes us to a different part of Australia and the temperature is certainly at the opposite end of the spectrum from The Dry.  It's cold, very, very cold.  Falk and his new partner, Carmen, are working with Alice Randall regarding some criminal activities at her workplace.  She will be their whistle blower and she's given them some financial documentation that they need, but has promised more.  Alice and others at her company, including the top executives, are attending a corporate retreat first though.  I can't imagine going camping in the wilderness with work colleagues, but this is what happens.  The men and women go on separate hikes and everyone is supposed to join up again in a few days.  However, the women are late and they come back without Alice, who has disappeared.  Aaron and Carmen, fearing that someone from the company has learned of Alice's meetings with the feds, join in on the hunt.

As I said, I really like Aaron Falk and I especially like his new partner.  I think she will be a good match for him.  The people on the corporate retreat are a pretty unlikable bunch, especially Alice.  We mostly see things from the women's point of view and the action takes us back and forth from the investigation to the actual events that happen on the retreat.  As in The Dry, the setting is described quite vividly and so it's easy to see how the group could get off course.  I can't imagine a company sending people off with so little preparation, but that's what happens.  I suspected some of the plot twists, but not all.  All I can say is that for many of us, there were 'mean girls' when we were kids and teens and there are 'mean girls' when we are grown up as well.

Will I be looking for Jane Harper's next book?  Absolutely.  We're discussing The Dry at our mystery group meeting in March and I'll be telling everyone to be sure and pick up Force of Nature as well.  This one is recommended. 

Blurb:

When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the muddy path.

But one of the women doesn’t come out of the woods. And each of her companions tells a slightly different story about what happened.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker. In an investigation that takes him deep into isolated forest, Falk discovers secrets lurking in the mountains, and a tangled web of personal and professional friendship, suspicion, and betrayal among the hikers. But did that lead to murder?