Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Force of Nature by Jane Harper - Harper grabs the reader and but she let go of me. As in The Dry there is a dramatic opening in rural Australia. In Force of Nature five women go into the bush as part of a team building exercise on a corporate retreat. Four return.

They all worked at BaileyTennants, a “boutique accountancy”.

Alice Russell, 45, is missing. Roughing it is not her customary style:

Her blonde hair had been pinned in a complicated style and she was wearing a silvery dress that showed off the hours she spent in the gym. She looked a good five years younger than her true age, maybe more.

Alice or someone using her phone had called a pair of numbers early in the morning she disappeared from the group. Australian federal police officer, Aaron Falk, received a 4:25 am phone message filled with static that ends with the chilling words “hurt her”. The other attempted call was to emergency.

Falk and his partner, Carmen Cooper, have been investigating generational money laundering at BaileyTennants. To avoid prosecution Alice had agreed to provide inside information.

The book shifts back and forth from the search for Alice to the ill fated camping expedition.

I found it striking that it was considered safe to send into the bush on their own 5 women with limited, decades earlier, experience in camping. Add to that risk they had no means of communicating if they encountered trouble. If the venture reflects real life Australians have a high tolerance of danger.

It was no surprise the women encountered problems on their second day in the bush. A fork in the trail and Breanna, a hungover map reader, sends them down the right fork. 

After the trek Falk and Carmen, more anxious about their source than her safety, visit Bree at the hospital . She is Alice’s administrative coordinator.

Bree’s twin sister, Beth, though only a data processing and archiving clerk was also on the trip. Her personal demons and addictions have left her much heavier and more psychologically burdened than Bree.

Mid-afternoon the hikers realize they have taken the wrong trail. There are arguments. Should they attempt to re-trace their steps? Should they move cross country to meet up with the proper trail?

Lurking in their minds are the stories of Martin Kovac. A serial killer of women who prowled this area. He has died in prison but his presence haunts the bush.

Over 150 pages into the book I knew virtually nothing of the backgrounds of the detectives or their investigation into BaileyTenants.

It is hard to sustain a story of lost hikers, especially when you know what happened at the end of the hike except for one member of the group. Further suspense evaporated when, early in the book, there was some information on what happened in the bush.

The interactions between the women were not enough to sustain the story for me. 

The secrets of the characters that worked so well in The Dry are not as effective here.

As in The Dry weather and the land were important but they could not carry the plot.

At 250 pages there was still little on Falk and less on Carmen. I appreciated Falk’s background was a theme in The Dry but I needed more in Force of Nature, especially about his experiences in the investigation of financial crime. As for Carmen I knew no more than she started by investigating crimes against children and had a fiance.

At 300 pages there was a meaningful discussion between Falk and Carmen over his life. I wish it had taken place 200 pages earlier and been followed up with more scenes on their lives and relationship.

Harper tells the story well. She drew me through the book. The paces and tension do escalate in the final 100 pages. There is a compelling ending.

Wondering how other reviewers reacted to the book I took a look around the net. I am definitely in the minority. Most reviewers loved the book.

****

Harper, Jane - (2018) - The Dry (Reviewed by reviewing Bernadette's review) and A Fictional and a Real Life Mass Murder of a Family