Sometimes a talented gymnast will wobble a bit on the balance bar and you realize she won't go home with gold, but she's definitely going to medal. Until the dismount. Suddenly she loses balance, flails her arms in the air, throws a leg behind her and steps back. She doesn't fall, but she doesn't seal the deal on a winning performance, either.
Which is to stay, it's hard to stick the landing.
Force of Nature by Jane Harper isn't about gymnasts. It's a thriller set in Australia about an investigator who chases financial crimes and, because it's related to one of his cases, becomes peripherally involved in examining the case of a missing hiker.
We initially meet this investigator, Aaron Falk, in The Dry, the first of this series. That one was so good in every way that I knew for certain I'd read the next to come. And No. 2 did grab my attention and keep the pages turning throughout most of the book.
As I tapped my Paperwhite to turn each page, I couldn't wait to see what would happen. From the beginning I didn't think this was an unputdownable 5-star read like The Dry, but it was definitely a 4-star read. As time went on, I thought it was more like 3.75 stars, but absolutely worth rounding up to 4.
Unfortunately, after nailing all the literary gymnastics of crafting a good thriller, the author didn't quite stick the ending.
I didn't find the ending particularly interesting. In the final pages I grew bored, forcing myself to finish once it became apparent where the ending was going. I gave the book 3 stars, meaning I liked it well enough, but I didn't like it a lot. And I probably won't bother to pick up the next in the series unless I'm in a very particular mood at the exact moment the library has an ebook available.
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