When I found out Jane Harper wrote a second novel featuring Aaron Falk, Force of Nature, I knew I had to see if it could live up to her debut. The Dry was just so personal that I couldn’t see how this person could successfully be serialized. The character loses a bit of it’s uniqueness in this very genre novel, but that didn’t really make it any less compelling to me. It’s a good crime novel!
The story is told through alternating chapters figuring out what went horribly wrong on a teambuilding retreat in the bushland. In present day, six months after the events of The Dry, Falk and his new partner Carmen get alerted that their contact at a dirty corporation has gone missing in a teambuilding expedition. The chapters in between those ones recount the events of the trip from the beginning. The perspectives in those chapters also alternate between the five women participating.
In the women’s group, there is Jill, one of the high level executives at the company, Alice, a senior manager, her assistant Lauren, her hardworking employee Bree, and Bree’s twin sister Beth, who’s a low-level analyst at the company. These women do not communicate well together, and it’s made more evident as time goes on and they get more lost. I mean with those conditions I’m sure anyone would get snippy, but there was absolutely no trust there. Alice is the one who goes missing and is presumably dead, which maybe seems like a bit of relief to everyone else in the group because she was seriously unpleasant. Unfortunately, she was Falk and Carmen’s contact.
Of course, the two can’t help but wonder if someone at the company, namely CEO Daniel, caught wind of her document gathering and had her taken care of (if you know what I mean). The pair start making headway by doing some actual investigative work, but as any good mystery novel goes, the full picture comes into play for them the same time we find out what happens on the trip. Just like The Dry, it really seems like any number of individuals could be responsible for Alice’s disappearance/murder, but there are so many twists and turns that the result will surprise you.
At least, it was fun for me to learn who did it! Again, I had my hesitations going into this book because of how solidly amazing Harper’s debut novel was, and how do you recycle a character who went through something so personal?! That’s almost something a character experiences dead last before hanging them up for good. I like that she sort of threw that typical trope out the window in that regard. Force of Nature was as compelling, if not more so, than any crime/mystery novel I’ve read before, and trust me, there’s been a lot. I would say if you’re fans of the likes of Ruth Ware, Liane Moriarty, or Riley Sager, then this juicy novel is for you! I promise!