Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Buy at Amazon I absolutely loved The Dry by Jane Harper when I read it last year (review here ) so I was thrilled to be offered Force of Nature to read as well.

There is always a moment of trepidation when you face up to reading a sequel to a well loved book, particularly when said book was a debut. Can the author really keep the flow, will the sequel be a let down, should you just stick with reading the one?

However, I’m happy to report that book two is absolutely as good as book one. Just as immersive, although a little different in style. Again there are multiple time lines, but the past time line is only a few days ago, and takes you slowly through Alice Russell’s disappearance. The present line rides with Aaron Falk again – if you haven’t read The Dry and made his acquaintance, while it’s not necessary to understand this book, I’d highly recommend you give yourself that treat as well.

Falk is a great character. He’s not your classic criminal detective, but instead a Federal Agent in the financial investigative unit. It appears that financial investigation doesn’t necessarily stay in the office the way you might expect. In this case they end up out in the bush as Alice disappeared on a team building exercise right in the middle of the territory of a serial killer from 25 years back.

The tag line on my proof copy says “Where did Alice Russell go?” It’s a good question.

I’m not going to go any further into the story – what I’ve shared so far is spoiler free. But there’s a lot going on in all these people’s lives, and you are going to find out all about them, and their offspring. You’re also going to get to spend a fair bit of time stumbling around the bush, and discovering what happens when a group of people sent out to build a team are up against the force of nature.

Force of Nature is available now on kindle and publishes in hardback on the 8th of February. The Dry is currently (4/02/18) 2.99 on Kindle, which is an absolute bargain to be honest. Enjoy! (And don’t forget to check out the other bloggers taking part in the blog tour.)