FORCE OF NATURE

Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side. The hike through the rugged Giralang Ranges on the corporate retreat is meant to take the office workers out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. But one of the women doesn't make it. Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case-in just a matter of weeks she was due to help him bring down both the company she works for and the people she works with. In an investigation that takes Falk from isolated bushland to city headquarters, he 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? This is as atmospheric, tense, and explosive as the bestselling The Dry, and marks the continuation of a terrific new series.