The third in the Aaron Faulk series set in Australia, and it was such a good idea to listen to it! Just as in the Shetland books, it's good to hear the accents and the rhythms of the specific language.

In this installment, Faulk visits a close friend to stand as godfather to the newborn son, only to get embroiled in what seems an impossible case of missing person during an annual festival. A year later, with no resolution to that mystery, he arrives again to complete the postponed christening. All those involved are again present for the festival. Some lovely romance, along with mysteries and the feel of the Australian vineyards. ( )

In this final installment in the Aaron Falk mystery series, Aaron is visiting friends in Australia's wine country. On his arrival he learns about the mysterious disappearance one year ago of a new mother. Despite being in town for a baptism, Falk can't help but don his detective cap, as the missing woman had close connections to his friends and their community.

I'm enjoying series well enough that I would have continued, but it sounds as though the author has confirmed this will be the final book in the series. For others like me, who don't naturally gravitate strongly toward mysteries, I recommend it both as a good series to dip one's toes into the genre and a peek into Australian literature and culture. ( )

3.33⭐ ( )

I listened to this Australian mystery and I really enjoyed the narration. Stephen Shanahan has done all of Jane Harper's audiobooks, I gather, and I can see why. His voice is perfect for them.

Aaron Falk, a police detective, is visiting friends in the Marralee Valley during the Marralee Valley Food and Wine Festival. His friends, the Racos, have asked Aaron to be godfather to their son and the christening is set for this weekend. Originally, it was scheduled for a year previously but when a young mother went missing during the festival all other activities were cancelled to allow for searching. The young mother, Kim Gillespie, used to live with Greg Raco's older brother, Charlie, in Marralee. They had a daughter together and she still wants to know what happened to her mother who has never been found. Kim had married and moved to Adelaide with her husband so the Racos had not seen much of her before her disappearance. Her husband says she had been suffering from post-natal depression and so the local authorities assume she committed suicide. Her shoe was found in the reservoir near to the fairgrounds but her body has never turned up. The reservoir was the scene of another local tragedy when Dean Tozer was hit by an unknown vehicle while walking his dog around the reservoir. He went into the reservoir and it took 5 months to find his body. Dean's son and Kim's daughter have become close due to these tragedies and the son's evidence that he never saw Kim leave by the gate that gave access to the reservoir where he was staffing the first-aid tent is one of the reasons her daughter doesn't believe she committed suicide. Greg Raco has been accumulating evidence during the past year and he asks Aaron to look over his file to see if he can come to any conclusions. So, although Aaron is on holidays and he enjoys going to the fair and spending time with his friends, he is also working on this mystery. In the end he works out what happened to Kim and to Dean Tozer but both solutions came as a surprise.

This is the third book in a series and I seem to have missed reading the second book. There were some references to events that probably arose in that book that I didn't understand so my recommendation would be to read the three books in order. ( )

Jane Harper is pretty hit or miss for me. I absolutely loved THE LOST MAN, and I enjoyed both THE DRY and THE SURVIVORS. FORCE OF NATURE, however, didn't work for me. So I was a little apprehensive going into this one. Within the first few chapters, I realized this wasn't going to be for me. It was just so damn slow. Six chapters in, I still didn't care about what happened to any of the characters. I'm pretty sure the entire novel is meant to be a slow burn to some major revelation, but I just didn't have the patience to get there. ( )