"Force of Nature" by Jane Harper

This follows on from Federal Detective's Aaron Falk's first outing in The Dry, a great whodunnit.

Five women from an accounting firm are on a team survival course in the Australian outback. Four return. The missing woman is Alice Russell, being used by Falk  as an informant in an investigation into money-laundering by the firm. Has one of the others murdered her? Or has she been attacked by the son of Martin Kovac, a serial killer who specialised in raping and murdering blonde young women. The only clue seems to be a message left on Falk's phone of which the only words that can be distinguished are "hurt her". This uses a classic whodunnit formula backed up by the dangers of the Australian bush.

Some great writing:

• "He seemed about to say something else, then changed his mind." (p 39)
• "She'd cracked the shits. Gone off on her own." (p 39)
• "He hated the way men in plush offices were able to wash their hands at arm's length" (p 53) although it makes me wonder where else they would wash their hands.
• "You've met my fiance. I literally had to put 'no denim' on the invitations for his side of the family." (p 227)
• "A woman with the distinctive look of a community social worker." (p 343)

October 2018; 421 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God