FORCE OF NATURE

Jane Harper Loot.co.za (R324) Little Brown

THIS second crime thriller from the British-born, but Australia-based, Harper is every bit as compelling as The Dry, her astonishingly assured debut.

Once again it features Melbourne police officer Aaron Falk, back on his more familiar beat solving whitecollar crime.

He is pursuing an accountancy fraud when Alice, the whistleblower he has unearthed, disappears on a team-building exercise in the fictional densely wooded Giralang Ranges – the only one of five women on the trek not to have returned.

The plot unfolds with serpentine elegance as there is a race against time to find her.

This confirms Harper’s place very close to the pinnacle of modern crime writing. Do not miss it.