Five women go on a hike. Only four return. Jane Harper, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry, asks: How well do you really know the people you work with?
When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the muddy path.
But one of the women doesn't come out of the woods. And each of her companions tells a slightly different story about what happened.
Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker. In an investigation that takes him deep into isolated forest, Falk discovers secrets lurking in the mountains, and a tangled web of personal and professional friendship, suspicion, and betrayal among the hikers. But did that lead to murder?
"Force of Nature bristles with wit; it crackles with suspense; it radiates atmosphere. An astonishing book from an astonishing writer."
--A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window
Select praise for The Dry
"One of the most stunning debuts I've ever read. Every word is near perfect. Read it!"
--David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"A breathless page-turner ... Ms. Harper has made her own major mark."
--The New York Times
"As thick with menace as the bush that seems to swallow the difficult Alice...
Force of Nature cuts between past and present, corporate and domestic, and cements its author as one of Australia's boldest thriller writers." --
Australian Women's Weekly"I loved The Dry. Force of Nature is even better. Brilliantly paced, it wrong-foots the reader like a rocky trail through the bush. I adored it."
--Susie Steiner, bestselling author of Missing, Presumed and Persons Unknown
"A major voice in contemporary fiction. Like Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series and Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels, Jane Harper's deftly plotted mysteries double as sensitive inquiries into human nature, behavior, and psychology. And like The Dry, Force of Nature bristles with wit; it crackles with suspense; it radiates atmosphere. An astonishing book from an astonishing writer."
--A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window
"Lord of the Flies in the Australian outback, with grown women in place of school boys. I loved every chilling moment of it. A blistering follow-up to The Dry from one of the best new voices in crime fiction."
--Sarah Hilary, author of the bestselling DI Marnie Rome series
"Manages to be two things at once. It's a financially skewed police procedural with a likeable detective with his own personal trajectory at its heart, and it's something of a "locked room mystery." The fact that the "locked room" is neither in a vicarage, nor on an island, but somewhere in the claustrophobic vastness of the Australian bush renders Force of Nature all the more original and engaging."
--Sydney Morning Herald
"As thick with menace as the bush that seems to swallow the difficult Alice...Force of Nature cuts between past and present, corporate and domestic, and cements its author as one of Australia's boldest thriller writers." --Australian Women's Weekly
"The narrative is finely constructed, with perfectly measured pace and suspense. So much so that it reminded me of another master of form, Liane Moriarty...There are echoes of Picnic at Hanging Rock and Lord of the Flies as any appearance of civility slips away and the women lose direction in a hostile landscape. So does Harper's new book live up to the first? I was thrilled to find that it does. The novel delivers and Harper writes like a dream."
--The Saturday Paper (Aus)
"Harper's mastery of pace makes Force Of Nature one of 2017's best thrillers."
--Elle (Aus)
"Gripping thriller will have readers hooked."
--Sunday Telegraph
"Force of Nature proves Jane Harper, author of The Dry, is no one-hit wonder. Its premise is instantly gripping."
--Herald Sun (Aus)
