Review - 'Force of Nature' by Jane Harper

Even when Jane Harper writes a story I don't quite connect with (trekking through the wilderness with co-workers *shudders*), I still end up enjoying it.

Five women go on a corporate retreat into the wilderness, but only four return. The missing woman, Alice, had been helping federal agent Falk with a financial investigation into her company and was on the verge of bringing him crucial incriminating evidence. So what really happened at the retreat that caused everything to go horribly awry?

For me, I just didn't find the topic of this book to be as interesting as Harper's other books. Through alternating chapters, we follow both the current investigation as well as the actual wilderness excursion that led to Alice's disappearance. I found the chapters on the investigation to be riveting, but the wilderness ones to be rather boring. Since I'm not someone who goes camping or does outdoorsy stuff, I had trouble getting into so much traipsing through the woods. And at least initially, there were many more pages of the wilderness narrative than of the investigation. It wasn't until about two-thirds of the way into it that the story started to pick up for me.

I do find, for a mystery, that it's a little deflating to rely so heavily on telling what really happened instead of using the unfolding investigation to drive the explanation. As a result, I found Falk's eventual solving of the mystery to be a little weak, really more of a lucky guess than truly fitting all the clues into the puzzle. But that subterfuge is not as apparent to the reader since we were able to delve into the minds of everyone, so all the pieces do make sense and fit together for us.

Still, Harper is an amazing writer. Her characters always feel interesting and fleshed out. I particularly enjoyed getting to know Carmen, Falk's partner, in this story. And even though the topic of this book is a little bland to me, Harper's writing isn't. It's compelling and atmospheric, dropping you right in the middle of the narrative so that you are inhabiting that world rather than looking in on it.

I'm glad I picked up this book even though I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Harper's other ones. There's a reason she's one of my favorite authors. Really, I'll read anything she writes.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars