Force of nature - Jane Harper

'THE NEW QUEEN OF CRIME' Sunday Times

The gripping new novel from the author of the Sunday Times top ten bestseller, Waterstones Thriller of the Month and Sunday Times Crime Book of the Year, The Dry.

FIVE WENT OUT. FOUR CAME BACK...

Is Alice here? Did she make it? Is she safe? In the chaos, in the night, it was impossible to say which of the four had asked after Alice's welfare. Later, when everything got worse, each would insist it had been them.

Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side.

The hike through the rugged landscape is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. At least that is what the corporate retreat website advertises.

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 Alice knew secrets. About the company she worked for and the people she worked with.

Far from the hike encouraging teamwork, the women tell Falk a tale of suspicion, violence and disintegrating trust. And as he delves into the disappearance, it seems some dangers may run far deeper than anyone knew.

Jane Harper is the author of The Dry, winner of various awards including the 2015 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, the 2017 Indie Award Book of the Year, the 2017 Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year Award and the CWA Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel of 2017. Rights have been sold in 27 territories worldwide, and film rights optioned to Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne.

Jane Harper, the new Queen of Crime...Even more impressive than The Dry...Harper makes it look easy but she has to pace two narratives without giving too much away, creating an almost unbearable level of suspense...Nature is a hostile, unpredictable force in both of Harper's novels, but her brilliance lies in making it into a test of horribly fallible human nature
The Sunday Times

'The most exciting emerging novelist of the last 12 months...As gripping, atmospheric and ingeniously plotted as The Dry, it places Harper in the elevated company of the authors she most admires: Val McDermid, Gillian Flynn and Lee Child
Mail on Sunday

Powerful, intriguing and recommended...Harper is wonderful at evoking fear and unease, and she draws a mesmeric picture of the terrifying Australian terrain
The Times

Jane Harper is more from the Patricia Highsmith and Donna Tartt school of mystery: elegant, intelligent and not for the faint-hearted...As chapters swap between the tense outward-bound weekend (where self-hatred, fear and resentment jostle for position) and its subsequent investigation, Harper creates a claustrophobic page-turner that conjures up that other great Australian mystery, Joan Lindsay's Picnic At Hanging Rock
Emerald St

Once again Harper leaves you gagging to know who did what. Once again there are plenty of suspects
Evening Standard

Jane Harper has high literary credentials - her debut novel, The Dry, one of the big hits of last year, matched critical acclaim with bestselling sales figures. This second novel is just as good...Landscape is a sinister presence in Harper's novels and here it takes on a powerfully disruptive, psychological force...Harper creates an atmosphere of stifling claustrophobia as the novel inexorably telescopes in...This is that rare thing, a whodunnit where the writing is as satisfying as the thrills
Metro

The delight of this spell-bindingly suspenseful thriller lies in the slow revelation of what really happened to the missing woman...This follow-up novel shows Harper is a crime-writing force to be reckoned with
Sunday Mirror

Force of Nature is Jane Harper's eagerly awaited follow-up to her debut novel The Dry, an international bestseller that has won a string of awards....Harper's writing style has no frills but it is clear and beautifully paced. It makes the bushland come alive and the sense of the wilderness closing in is tangible...This thriller will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck and leave you gripped to the final page
Daily Express

Jane Harper's The Dry was a publisher's dream: a critically acclaimed debut novel that became an immediate best seller. Force of Nature is her follow-up, and it arrives without a trace of sophomore slump; if anything it is a better novel than its predecessor...While the plot unfolds at an expertly controlled pace and is resolved in a satisfyingly ambiguous fashion, it is the relationships between the women that drive the novel...thoughtful, moving, troubling
Irish Times

A three-day team-building hike in the Australian bush ends in disaster when the unpleasant Alice Russell disappears. Throw in a serial killer, industrial espionage, and several unreliable narrators and you have a tense thriller that made me feel good about my decision never to go camping
Red magazine

A gripping follow-up to her debut, The Dry
Good Housekeeping, Three Thrillers We Love

We cancelled all our plans when we heard the brilliant Jane Harper was bringing out a follow-up to her fab crime novel The Dry. And we're glad we did, because Force Of Nature is every bit as gripping as its predecessor. . . Don't miss it
NEW magazine

That all-important 'difficult' second novel? Jane Harper has smashed it in spades...Her astonishing first book, The Dry, a sizzlingly tense murder drama set during the Aussie drought, picked up maximum stars in this column last year - but we'll have to empty the star drawer for this one...Throw in a serial killer in the area and you've got a netful of red herrings to sift through before you get to the clever and nerve-jangly ending
Weekend Sport