Jane Harper's New Book--A Force of Nature--Is!

Force of Nature by Jane Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having read The Dry, I was really excited to receive the second installment of Harper's Falk series from BookBrowse to discuss on their website. I was not disappointed. Five women are selected to make a trek into the outback of Australia by their corporate employer in an effort to enhance workplace cooperation and morale. One of the five is one of the family who owns the company, the others hold various positions, from managers to subordinates. The object is to hike into the brushland in a very isolated area, make camp on three nights and rendezvous at a pick-up site by noon on Sunday for the 2 hour drive back to Melbourne. When the appointed hour is reached only four of the women arrive, they are exhausted, injured, bruised, bloodied and battered. The missing Alice is not a likeable woman but she is of special interest to Aaron Falk and his partner, since she has been working undercover for them to obtain important documents that will lead to the arrest of the principals of the company for money laundering and fraud.

So, where is Alice? Is she alive? Did she wander off when the group became disoriented and lost? Has she had an accident? Has she died or is she still out there, lost and victim of the elements? Each of the four women have a slightly different version of the four days spent isolated and frightened, without food or water and barely any protection from the cold and rain that they endured.

While Harper keeps the rescue teams and various law enforcement officers busy in the search and takes us along with them, she also cleverly, with short asides, takes us on the journey with the women, revealing to us, gradually the interpersonal relationships and dynamics among the women, as well as some of their personal history and family situations. As the dire situation of being lost and unable to communicate for help deteriorates, so too do the tempers and human considerations of the women. At the end, what happened to Alice is both shocking and yet, not totally unexpected.

A page turner and read, by me, in one day--nothing was more important than finding Alice and knowing her fate.

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