January 2019 Book, Force of Nature

A woman goes missing in the Australian wilderness.

Agent Aaron Falk of the Federal Police is still recovering from his last case, and the fire that burned his hand badly, when he gets a call from his new partner, Carmen Cooper, that a woman named Alice Russell has gone missing in the Giralang Ranges three hours outside Melbourne, where she had been taking part in a corporate retreat with her colleagues from the Bailey Tennants accountancy firm. This sparks a grim memory for Falk: more than 20 years ago, when the policeman was a teenager, a killer named Martin Kovac littered the same area with the bodies of young women he’d murdered. Kovac couldn't have taken Alice, because he’s dead, but her disappearance dredges up some horrific memories in the collective consciousness, which adds a creepy dimension to an increasingly puzzling case. Falk and Cooper don’t work missing persons—they’re financial investigators, and Alice was helping them with a case on the down low, gathering information on her boss’s money matters. Falk can’t help worrying that her disappearance might have something do to with the investigation, especially when he realizes he has a garbled message from Alice on his phone. After Falk and Cooper join the search, they discover that Alice’s problems with her co-workers went beyond the professional and that tensions ran as deep and wide as the wilderness she's lost in.

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