I really enjoyed this book. Five women go hiking on a team building weekend and only four return. Where is Alice? This story is really well written. I could imagine the scenery and the characters in the story. The plot was believable and so were the characters. I found myself reading this book in one season. I would definitely recommend this book and I would definitely read more books by this author.

Another great novel from Jane Harper. I liked the way the novel switched from the investigation back to the events leading up to Alice's disappearance. Plenty of twists along the way. Good to see the return of Aaron Falk. Hopefully will see this character develop in future novels.

Enjoyed the book and found I needed to finish it to see the mystery solved. Not as brilliant as the hype suggested tho.

I'm afraid that I was unable to finish this book. It does not compare with the quality of writing of The Dry. The characterisation was weak, in my opinion, and it did not grip me from the start. I cannot recommend it.

Set in the rugged Australian outback, FORCE OF NATURE tells the story of five female work colleagues who reluctantly set out on a hike as part of a team building weekend. The trip is meant to teach resilience, bonding and teamwork but when only four of the women come out the other side, a tale of suspicion, violence and disintegrating trust begins to surface.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing bushwalker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case and knew secrets about the company she worked for and the people she worked with. Was Mother Nature really responsible for Alice’s disappearance or does the danger run far deeper?

Intelligent, engaging and packed full of suspense, FORCE OF NATURE is an atmospheric, absorbing and disturbing tale of a hike gone horribly wrong. Told in alternating timelines, one in which the reader is taken back in time to follow the women on their hike, and the other in present day as Aaron and Carmen assist with the search, Harper keeps the intrigue and suspense high by slowly revealing the pieces of the puzzle, layer by layer.

Written more like a traditional “whodunnit” than a modern day crime thriller, the focus is on the characters and their motives rather than the crime itself, with Harper slowly revealing little details about the five women to make everyone a suspect.

Following his introduction in THE DRY, Agent Aaron Falk once again takes centre stage in FORCE OF NATURE. Harper easy and intelligent writing style also makes a welcome return. In FORCE OF NATURE, the hot setting of THE DRY turns into the wet and cold Australian outback, with Harper once again showing a nature flair for describing her settings in great detail, with the harsh terrain, howling winds and torrential rain in the Australian outback vividly brought to life.

Yet, while there are enough red herrings to keep you guessing until the end, when the finale is finally revealed, it falls a little flat and isn’t hugely surprising. Those who haven’t read THE DRY may also feel the two main detectives aren’t fleshed out hugely, with Falk in particular less rounded than in the first book.

That said, this is a worthy follow-up to THE DRY and another sinister and intriguing thriller from Harper.

4.5*
Force of Nature has a measured pace, similar to that of The Dry, except the conditions are the total opposite. Instead of a life threatening, damaging drought, it’s the depths of winter, freezing cold, wet and windy. Set mostly in the rugged wilderness that is the Giralang Ranges, with the unforgettable association to the serial killer, Martin Kovac, the story follows a group of five women on a team building exercise, a corporate retreat, hiking the bush trail over the course of a weekend. Only four came back.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk and his partner, Carmen Cooper, arrive at the Giralang lodge to find out what happened to the missing woman, Alice Russell. Their whistleblower. The Financial Investigations Unit are looking into BaileyTennants, the company who organised the weekend, with a little help on the inside. The AFP are investigating serious allegations centred around money laundering.

The narrative flows well and unfolds with a dual timeline. Short chapters move the story along, peeling back layers and leading up to an unexpected reveal. In the present Aaron, Carmen, the rescue services and the state police are coordinating the search and trying to piece together events. This alternates with flashbacks to the women’s journey, as they become lost in the Australian wilderness. The focal point is the characters and, as the story progresses, the tension and desperation builds as we start to get an idea of the history and dynamics between the women as the survival instinct kicks in. One of the underlying themes here shows how far a mother would go to protect her child. All is not as it seems and I had no idea of the eventual outcome until it was revealed. There were several ways it could have played out.

Atmospheric and vivid, the detailed writing gives a strong sense of the setting and the mindsets of the women….the cold, wet and miserable weather, the hunger and thirst, the menacing feel of being surrounded and overwhelmed by the shadows cast from the encroaching forest, how it all can affect a person’s perception and behaviour. I was quite surprised, though, that an established company, specialising in this sort of outdoor activity, would send their parties out without any sort of back up, or way of communication in case of emergency.

It was good to learn a little more about Aaron Falk, the relationship between himself and his father, and how Carmen helps him to put his feelings and regrets in perspective. There’s a lot more mileage in this character, he’s likeable, portrayed very realistically and I’ll be interested to see where Jane Harper takes him. I’ve enjoyed the writing style and story telling in both The Dry and Force of Nature very much.

I chose to read and review Force of Nature courtesy of an advance reader copy supplied by NetGalley and the author/publisher.

Wow! What a book! Following on from Jane’s success with The Dry comes the highly anticipated Force of Nature, and what a show-stopper it is. I am grateful to be one of today’s stops on the Blog Tour, so thanks to both Jane Harper and Little Brown for having me on board!

‘Five went out. Four came back…’

Alice Russell is missing, and no-one knows ‘who, what, where, when and why’ – or do they?!

Five women reluctantly go on a team-building hike through the Australian bush, but only four come out on the other side. Where is Alice, and what has happened to her?! Jane Harper is wonderful at keeping you on your toes, and she writes in such a way that makes this is a fast-paced read but with all of the necessary details that an excellent story requires.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk is back, and what a memorable character he is. Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing Alice as she is the whistleblower in his latest case. Alice holds the key (and secrets!) into helping him making an arrest of the people Alice currently works for… so could this be the reason she is missing?!

Jane Harper is superb at teasing us; she flips the story back and forth from the past to the present. Especially later on when we are finally about to discover what happened to Alice, the chapters are short and left on cliff hangers, building up to the tense final moment of ‘I did not see that coming’!

This is climatic writing at its finest, each scene is described with a pinch of mystery and Jane Harper sure knows how to keep a reader wanting more.

The last few pages are actually quite peaceful and happy. It is always good to end on a high note, instead of death and destruction – if you know what I mean?!

Thank you so much to Grace Vincent at Little Brown for sending me a review copy in return for my opinion – this was definitely one of my highly anticipated 2018 reads, and I am ever so grateful to have received an early copy!

Jane Harper's The Dry introduced crime readers around the world to financial crimes investigator Aaron Falk, he returns for a second outing in Force of Nature. An accountancy firm arranges a corporate retreat, in the mountainous region of Giralang, an area with a dark past. Falk and his partner are working with Alice a whistleblower from within the company, however when the group return from the bush she has gone missing.

As with the The Dry, Harper looks at the psychological make up of the group and the Australian outback features hugely, as it quite rightly should. The narrative takes the form of past and present in alternate chapters and Harper keeps her reader guessing right up until the end as to what has actually happened.

Surely there will be further outings for Falk, he is set to join the ranks of other great fictional detectives.

I so enjoyed this fabulous book. I thought the premise was very intriguing and I found myself gripped from the beginning with the fascinating mystery of what happened to Alice and why.

The thing that most stands out about this book is the brilliant use of the dual storyline. One follows Federal Agent Fauk and his partner Carmen as they help investigate Alice’s disappearance, the other describes what happened on the woman’s team building hike. This makes for truly fascinating reading as it helps the reader get a better understanding of all the characters involved, what makes them tick and about their past experiences that still impact them today. This is especially true in the parts describing the women’s experiences as things start to go wrong and the cracks in their fragile relationships begin to show. This was expertly done with the author gradually revealing things about each character that really keeps the reader on their toes and guessing who was responsible for Alice’s disappearance. I must have changed my mind at least a dozen times as each new chapter threw up new information that twisted the story in another direction. This was hugely enjoyable for me as I love the to be kept guessing and the anticipation of discovering the truth.

I didn’t particularly like any of the women characters as they all seemed fairly unlikable. They were all quite selfish and no one seemed particularly bothered about anyone other than themselves. They are all well very different to each other which becomes more apparent as the story and the hike) go on. I did like Fauk though and developed a bit of a soft spot for him throughout the book, especially when bits of his past are revealed. He seemed to really care about his partner and his work which was lovely to read about. I loved how real he seemed and found myself willing him to succeed and discover what happened.

The setting of the book, The Giralang Ranges, help create a very tense, eerie and claustrophobic atmosphere due to the vivid descriptions on the dense trees which grow close together. The history of what had happened there a few years previously also helps to create an almost menacing atmosphere and the sensation that the trees could be hiding anything and anyone. I certainly found myself holding my breath at times as the women ventured further into the trees, wondering what they would discover.

This book is brilliantly plotted and the gradual revelations makes the book very difficult to out down. The story is very addictive and I started carrying my book around with me and hiding in the toilet from the kids just so I could read a couple more pages. It’s been a while since a book has made me do this.

This is the authors’s second book, but the first one I have read. It is the second in a series but I thought it could easily be read as a standalone as anything you need to know is explained to you. I will definitely be going back and reading her first book, The Dry, soon.

Huge thanks to the lovely Kimberly from Little Brown for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour. Just read this book you won’t be disappointed!

A good start but I never felt gripped by the tension which the situation held. The sub texts should have added more than they did and it’s hard to say what exactly why. Perhaps it was the nature of the crime that Falk and Carmen were investigating was rather dry and I never quite felt I understood where Alice fitted into either this investigation or Bailey Tennants.

How do you follow up a debut that was arguably the best crime novel, debut or otherwise, of its year? That's the question facing Australian Jane Harper, who burst onto the scene with the searing Outback-set murder mystery THE DRY, which scooped numerous awards and 'best of the year' accolades, including the prestigious CWA Gold Dagger for the best crime novel in the world last year.

In FORCE OF NATURE, Federal agent Aaron Falk is squelching through mud and battling the wintry chill in the Giralang Ranges outside of Melbourne, rather than battling the heat in the parched and drought-striken farmland landscapes of his childhood hometown in THE DRY. His vision is obscured by rain instead of sweat, but he's battling the elements as well as criminals, just the same.

Falk and his AFP colleague Carmen Cooper are in the Giralangs, a place with a morbid history, because the hiker missing from a 'team building exercise' was in fact their inside woman for a fraud case their financial crimes unit is building against Bailey Tennants, the company doing the retreat.

As they investigate what happened on the multi-day hike, Falk and Cooper uncover a tale of brittle group dynamics, suspicion, and eroding trust. It was an arduous hike for the office workers, and among the mud and strain something went horribly wrong. The four women who walked out say Alice was causing problems then left of her own accord, striking out on her own to get help against the wishes of the rest of the group. But are they telling the truth? Was Alice waylaid by Mother Nature, one of the women themselves, or someone else who is stalking the Giralangs?

Harper does another fantastic job creating a brooding, atmospheric tale where nature itself casts a character-like shadow over the storyline. There's an eeriness to the majestic Giralangs, a sense of timelessness mixed with a simmering sense of danger. Falk's own father used to walk these trails, as did a vicious serial killer who hunted his prey nearby. What sort of dangers lurk now?

With its isolated and malevolent setting, FORCE OF NATURE is like a modern version of a classic ‘country house’ murder mystery: a dislikeable victim, limited suspects, and plenty of secrets.

Overall, Harper's sophomore novel is an absolute cracker, further developing the character of Falk while showcasing the author's great touch for intertwining fascinating plot-lines and powerful landscapes. For me personally I'm not sure if FORCE OF NATURE quite reaches the heights of the superlative THE DRY, but it makes a bloody good attempt. It certainly cements Harper as a terrific new voice in global crime writing who won't ever have to worry about being a one-hit wonder.

A top crime novel from a top author. More please.

The Giralong Ranges in Australia, savage and inhospitable; a wilderness best left to the experienced bushman but Bailey Bennets choose the venue for an executive team building weekend.

At once mysterious and atmospheric the novel follows the course of the weekend and its aftermath alternating between past and present in chapters that draw the reader through the narrative.

Aaron Falk and his partner come to investigate why five women set off on the exercise but only four returned but for them it is more than a missing persons case. Alice Russel, the missing woman has been collecting documents for them, evidence that will prove malpractice in the organisation.

Harper cleverly exposes not only what has happened on the weekend but the betrayals and resentments that the players have stored up for some time. We are led down paths as twisting and dark as those of the bush.

A superb follow up to The Dry.

I enjoyed this book. The characters were strong as was the storyline. I enjoyed 6he twists and turns and would definitely recommend it. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to review it.

I really liked Jane Harper's new book: Force of Nature that I flew through it. It's definitely my kind of thriller without making your stomach cringe because of heavy to digest visual descriptions or violent elements. So, if you worry about these things like me, this book is perfect. 
The book opens with a tensed scene taking us into the Australian wilderness, when we realize Alice is missing. Detective Aaron Falk, whom we got to know in her previous novel, The Dry,  returns once again to investigate what happened to her. He's somehow related to her through another investigation, and suspects if her disappearance is related to that. A group of 5 women get lost in wild nature during a corporate team building event, and eventually 4 of them show up except Alice. The story goes back and forth between the past and present as we dig deeper into the lives and relationships of these 5 women. There are many relations, grudges, secrets to uncover from the past. And, it's only at the very end we learn what happened to Alice.   
The book is written in a very interesting way, as we start from the point when these women started their hike, and on the other side when Falk starts his investigation to find Alice. We alternate between these two stories slowly peeling off the layers of the past and dynamics among these women. As we move, the pace increases a lot and it becomes impossible to put it away. Jane Harper managed to create a very creepy atmosphere with the way she vividly described the environment. I really felt scared with this intense experience, and I loved it. I also really liked how Harper connected the mystery to the tension built among these women related to their part experiences. It made me think really hard to guess what happened to Alice, and it wasn't that easy!
This book certainly made me a Jane Harper fan. I will definitely look forward to her next book!

BaileyTennants is a business currently under investigation by the Federal Police, but the direction of the investigation is about to take a strange turn. Five women head out into the wilderness on a bonding exercise, one of whom, Alice, is the whistleblower that Agent Aaron Falk is liaising with to bring down the company. But when he receives a voice message from Alice, quiet, indistinct, but with the words “hurt her” clearly audible, he realises something is wrong, something confirmed when the other four women on the trip stumble out of the wilderness with a simple question – “Is Alice here?”

Determined to find Alice, Falk and his team start to interview the other four – are they the survivors, or is Alice out there somewhere, lost and alone? Did an accident befall her – or something more sinister? Someone knows something about what happened out there – but can Aaron Falk find the truth in time?


The Dry was one of the hit thrillers of last year and the follow up – also featuring Falk, but completely standalone – has been highly anticipated, certainly by me. It’s had a slightly odd publishing schedule, being out for a few months as an ebook, but is out this week in hardback. I’ve been asked, along with quite a few other bloggers, to take part in the blog tour for the book launch – check out the graphic below for the other bloggers for today.
There are many more spread throughout the week, so do look around for other opinions.

Back to the book itself, and it alternates between two narratives. One is the present day investigation into Alice’s whereabouts, focusing on Falk, looking at his progress and delving into his personal life, notably his relationship with his late father. The other steps a few days back in time, telling the story of the five women, each chapter focussing on one of the five and slowly developing the tensions between them. Each chapter balances up with the present day investigation, the two stories dovetailing together as the book progresses. The characters, both Falk and the five women are very well constructed, each distinct, with clear characteristics and motivations.

The problem that I had with the book is that The Dry set a very high standard for the writer and (and this clear if you look at the other reviews) I’m in a distinct minority here, I think that The Dry is the better book. Just. It’s a personal taste thing, as I prefer a clearly defined problem in my mysteries – a body in the library with a murder weapon in the back – rather than a “something undefined has or might have happened to someone” tale. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very strong, well-crafted tale, I just prefer the former structure.

So, fans of The Dry, why not check this one out? With a vibrant setting and intriguing characters, plus a tension-building plot, this will appeal to the mystery and thriller market alike. Highly Recommended.

We hear a lot about building team spirit. Companies love the idea of reinforcing bonds between their employees to get the best of them. I am not against the idea. I can spend a day playing water sports or cardboard games. But going on a three-days hike? Count me out! No matter how charming they make it sound (or rather how “important” if you don’t want to take the door), I’d rather eat my weight in Brussels sprouts than to sacrifice precious days out in the wild life with people I am not sure I would trust with a stapler in a perfectly safe open space.

Yet, when I put the book down, it felt as I had actually been on a hike. A very special one! Force of Nature is my first Jane Harper story, and it surely won’t be my last, even though it has reinforced my paranoid side!

Ten people at the starting line. Nine make it back. I’m not a math genius but when the book offered me this problem to solve, I shivered, both with dread and excitement. This feeling never left me, thanks to the different narrations and the coming back and forth in time element that only enhanced the experience of the entire story. Don’t expect a chapter to release tension and leave you breathe for a while. Every part is filled with life in all its form.

He was reminded of an old proverb. Something about trying to catch feathers scattered in the wind.

The search, of course. Thorough, realistic, scary. I could imagine the breaking news on my TV, I imagined myself stuck in the middle of nowhere, a hundred scenarios ran through my mind as I read, helped by the fact we don’t truly get the missing person’s point of view, rather an outsider’s take on what happens, what is felt or not, and how things look like. The author masterfully plays with her characters, like pawns on a very icy chess game. Each chapter is devoured like a TV show scene; details, snippets of information you don’t understand, human dynamics you must decipher as if your own life depended on it. I was breathless, climbing a mountain of questions and doubts.

Force of Nature. The more I walked into the story, the better I understood the title. Jane Harper, using a sample of ten people and their close outside connections, gives you the ugly truth about human nature. Is it really a force? Have we actually grown out of those primal needs and fears our ancestors and animals live with? When faced with the worst, how would YOU react? I am not talking about the impact of one incident, but the accumulation of tiny things; stinging remarks, looks exchanged, whispered words, exhaustion. When mother nature decides to crash the party, too, you can be sure masks fall and anything can turn into a weapon.

Everything starts to look the same after a few days, makes it hard to trust what you’re seeing.

Force of Nature is one hell of a book. I mean it. I am not very brave, and this book reminded why I prefer to stay home with books and vicariously live through the safety of my pages. I don’t dread nightmares, vampires, or snakes. Our biggest enemy is ourselves. What we are, what we become, how life shapes us and how it affects every part of our body and mind. Every word in Force of Nature hurts, stings, gives you goosebumps, reminds you of things done or not done, of regrets and mistakes, of decisions taken too soon, or not taken at all. Jane Harper dissects her little human beings, throws in a terrible old crime story, two unconventional cops to spice things up, and give you the fright of your life.

‘I don’t know. Maybe we can’t help who we are. Maybe we’re born a certain way and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

I’ve never been on a team building exercise like this one in Force of Nature – thank goodness! This one for employees of an accountancy firm, BaileyTennants is a really bad one – two groups, five men and five women with no experience of hiking are sent out into the outback, on their own, for a few days. The only training they were given was a half-day course in navigation for one member of each team. And they weren’t allowed to take their phones with them. Inevitably the worst happened – the women’s group got lost and when they eventually returned one person, Alice Russell, was missing.

Once I had got over my disbelief that such a terrible team building exercise would actually happen, this is fiction after all, I found that I loved this book, set in the fictional Giralang Ranges in Australia, seeing the Mirror Falls roaring down from a cliff edge into the pool fifteen metres below, the eucalyptus trees and the dense bush, and the breathtaking views of rolling hills and valleys as the gum trees give way, with the sun hanging low in the distance.

In fact I soon became completely absorbed in the mystery of what happened to Alice. The narrative moves between two different time periods that gradually merge into one. The descriptions of both the locations and the characters are wholly convincing – it was as though I was there in the bush, with the women struggling to get back on course and find their way back to the rendezvous point. I could feel their frustration and fear of the elements and whatever danger was out there in the bush, as their food and water ran out and they struggled desperately to survive. Their relationships, not good at the start, rapidly deteriorate as underlying jealousies and resentments come out into the open and results in violence.

Equally convincing is the search party, with Federal Agent Aaron Falk and his colleague Carmen Cooper from the financial investigation unit in Melbourne. They were involved in the search because Alice, the missing woman, was a whistle blower, helping them to uncover an elaborate money-laundering scheme run by BaileyTennants, the company that employs her and the other women.

It’s as much a character study as it is a mystery. Alice is a very unpopular person and any one of the other women could have been responsible for her disappearance. The tension and suspense is carried through to the end – an end that I thought I’d worked out, but of course I hadn’t got it right.

This is the second of Jane Harper’s Aaron Falk’s novels. The first is The Dry, which I haven’t read yet. So I was pleased to find that Force of Nature works very well as a standalone book. There are a few references to what I think must have happened in The Dry, but nothing that gave away the plot of that book. I’ll definitely read The Dry as soon as possible now.

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for my review copy.

Excellent. I enjoyed this book, it was quite different to 'The Dry', but equally as gripping. Very well written and the characters were believable.

This scenario sounds like my worst nightmare - an outward-bound, team-building exercise with your work colleagues.

But it isn't a day's yomp through the British countryside. These five women have to spend four days, and nights, in the Australian bush. No phone signal, no back up, and if they miss the checkpoints there is no guarantee they'll find food, water or shelter. They're on their own. Left to their own devices.

When the women reach the final rendezvous, they are hours late, exhausted and terrified - what's more, there's one of them missing. What's happened to Alice?

The search begins, and federal police agent Aaron Falk watches intently as the events unfold, his anxiety building.

Alice is the whistleblower in his case against the company she worked for. Had he put her in danger? Were others aware of her role? Had she more secrets to reveal? Did she have the documents he needs?

The story unfolds both in the present moment, following Falk piece together the incidents leading up to Alice's disappearance, at the same time as getting alongside the women in all that they experience in the preceding four days. Each thread is as compelling, as atmospheric and as perfectly paced as the other.

It's a case of clearing your diary to read this. You won't be able to put it down until you reach the final reveal in the very last pages. The tension and suspense is intense as the levels of fear, suspicion and violence build. Far from being a satisfactory follow-up to 'The Dry', it's arguably even better! A brilliant read!

4,5 Stars

I wasn’t as enchanted as many other readers by Jane Harper’s „The Dry“. It was just a nice but average suspense novel for me and I still don’t get all the excitement about it. But I enjoyed it enough to give the author another try. The blurb of “Force of Nature” sounded just like my kind of thing.

Last time we met Aaron Falk it was in a claustrophobic small town in the middle of nowhere in Australia while the land suffers heat and dryness. This time we are out in the open and it is cold and raining all the time. I was hooked almost immediately. There is a dark atmosphere surrounding this hike and the five women. You don’t know what happened to Alice. Did she just wander off on her own or happened something during their hike? Or is there a killer on the loose?

I enjoyed the different point of views and the two timelines. I found the past timeline where we see how this hike went so terribly wrong a bit more gripping. I am still not so much into Aaron Falk. His struggle with his relationship with his father felt very realistic. But I am happy that this book was not so much about him. I am not a huge fan of recurring characters and their personal development during several books. Usually I get bored with them or they start to annoy me. That’s the reason I avoid series. I am a junkie for good stories and that’s exactly what I got here.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is gripping and there are a lot of red herrings. Jane Harper has a very special prose and I am looking forward to read more from her.