Legitimately creepy 'missing person' thriller
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The Blurb:
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?
The Review
Once again, I seem to have managed to read a sequel before reading the first in the series. In 'Force of Nature', Harper reprises the characters from her bestselling 'The Dry' - which now I have to go back and read.
However, I can attest to the fact that if you do read them back to front like I did, it won't mar your enjoyment of this one in the slightest. This stands alone quite nicely with little or no back-referencing to the first book.
I read quite a lot of 'Missing person' thrillers and they do tend to get a bit repetitive as they try to come up with new and fantastical ways to make someone disappear. But this one really had the 'goosebump' factor. It was legitimately creepy for all the right reasons.
Alice has gone missing while on a corporate retreat in the wilderness. The other 4 women make it back, but several days late and in a hell of a state. And no-one seems to know what happened to Alice.
So simple and so elegant. I was hooked. Harper slowly divulges information about the relationships between these 5 women and with that, the slowly simmering tension increases. The suspense grows as we alternate between the narrative of the women whilst on the hike, and the narrative of Aaron Falk, investigating the disappearance and trying to unravel what has really happened. It was made all the better by the fact that the missing woman is not a likeable character. It would have been too trite for her to be the 'damsel in distress' and making her part-villain really gave an edge to this story.
Most of all it seemed believable. I've read too many bad Detective books where farcical things happen and they have me rolling my eyes. But in 'Force of Nature' the police characters and their investigations are much less cliché. (In fact they walk around a lot of the time not really sure what's going on, which is what I expect happens a lot in real life police investigations!) Also the way Harper writes is compelling - she narrates in such a simple, unpretentious manner, whilst still painting vivid images of the landscape, so strong, that you can almost feel the oppressiveness of the trees surrounding you.
The most interesting and chilling part of this book for me, was how quickly the social norms and etiquette between the 5 women broke down once they ran out of food and shelter etc. and realised they would have to fight for their survival. It had almost an animalistic, 'Lord of the Flies' quality to it, that was genuinely unsettling.
And oh, but I do like to be unsettled by a book.