Force of Nature

Carmen is Aaron’s coworker in the financial crimes unit. Like Aaron, she is hardworking and insightful, and she shares Aaron’s belief that white-collar criminals deserve just as much attention from law enforcement as violent criminals. Carmen is also deeply empathetic; she transferred to financial crimes in part because she found her work in child protection to be too emotionally draining, and she can no longer stand to see so many children in deleterious situations. 

She brings her innate sense of empathy to her work relationships, as well, and although the main focus of this novel remains on the case of Alice’s disappearance and murder, Aaron and Carmen do develop a meaningful friendship based on respect and candor. For example, when Carmen ascertains how difficult Aaron’s relationship with his father was, she attempts to help him understand his own feelings. She also invites Aaron to her wedding and attempts to include him in her circle of friends. Carmen does not bear the burden of psychological damage that characterizes Aaron and many other figures in the novel, and she has a happy and healthy relationship with her fiancé, Jaime.

In addition to being the murder victim and the primary focus of the investigation, Alice is one of the novel’s antagonists. Before her untimely death in the Australian bush, she is an executive at Bailey Tennant and has a reputation for bullying that has given rise to several workplace complaints against her. She “rubs people the wrong way” and is largely disliked at work and within the women’s hiking group (87). 

The narrative initially implies that Alice and Lauren are friends, for the author describes their shared history at the same high school and reveals that Lauren characterizes Alice as her “protector.” However, it is ultimately revealed that Alice actually bullied Lauren during their high school years and only posed as her friend in order to be cruel to her. Now, Alice is a key part of Aaron and Carmen’s ongoing investigation into financial crimes at Bailey Tennant. Although she is willing to help them gain access to classified company documents, Aaron knows full well that she is only cooperating to avoid prosecution herself; she, too, is part of the company’s organized fraud. Her role in Bailey Tennant’s financial wrongdoing adds another layer to Alice’s lack of personal ethics, and she also shows her poor character by condoning similar bullying tendencies in her daughter, Margot, who has been tormenting Lauren’s daughter, Rebecca. Alice not only tacitly allows this behavior; she also encourages it, viewing the world as a cutthroat place. She believes that her daughter will fare better as a ruthless adult who has no remorse over the fact that she mistreats her peers.

Breanna, or “Bree,” is Alice’s assistant, and of all the women in the hiking group, she is the most comfortable with outdoor activities. Bree is fit, hardworking, and willing to tackle any task, and she is also determined to climb the corporate ladder. Her positive attitude about the hike is rooted in her desire to be a “team player,” and her can-do attitude on the hike is part of a broader spirit of allegiance to the demands of corporate culture. 

Because she covets a promotion, she does whatever she can to be seen as a competent, reliable employee, and she knows that if she works well for Alice, who is a difficult boss, her long-term success in the company is guaranteed. However, Bree is a complex character in several key regards. Like many of the other women in this novel, she has disordered eating patterns and struggles with body image issues; she is therefore part of this author’s broader critique of gender norms. She is also characterized by her fraught relationship with her twin sister, Bethany, who serves as a foil to her in many ways. Whereas Bree is driven and law-abiding, Bethany has an addiction and has been incarcerated in the past for stealing from Bree. Bethany becomes a natural scapegoat in the group, and although Bree contributes to this dynamic at times, she is also shown to be protective of her sister. Their relationship is therefore tumultuous and nuanced, as neither sister fully embraces or rejects the other.

Bethany is Bree’s twin sister. She has a computer science degree but works a low-level data entry job at Bailey Tennant. Bethany is not as corporate-minded as her fellow employees and does not go out of her way to perform highly at her job. Her lackluster performance does not go unnoticed, and this dynamic contributes to her lack of popularity both in the workplace and on the hike. Bethany becomes the group’s scapegoat whenever anything goes wrong, especially in her interactions with Alice, who is a natural bully and actively targets Beth on the hike. 

Beth’s lack of popularity is also the result of her past. She has an addiction and spent time in prison after stealing from her sister, Bree. Although the author addresses the topics of addiction and incarceration with sensitivity and understanding, Beth is nonetheless stigmatized by her coworkers and even by her sister. However, this mistreatment does not make her bitter or resentful. Although she holds her ground against Alice, she is not rancorous with the rest of the group and emerges from the misadventure with a positive attitude. She is ultimately willing to help Aaron and Carmen complete their investigation, in part because she has no particular allegiance to Bailey Tennant, but also because she has a strong set of personal ethics. She takes full responsibility for her own past mistakes and does not believe that white-collar crime should go unpunished just because its perpetrators are educated and largely nonviolent.

Lauren is part of the middle management team at Bailey Tennant. As an adolescent, she was bullied because of her weight and still bears the emotional scars of her teenage years. She continues to have body image issues and disordered eating patterns, and she is not a happy woman. Although she is sure that she adequately hides both her emotional instability and her disordered eating, Jill and several of her other coworkers have perceived her unspoken issues. For example, Jill observes that Lauren has become “very thin these days” and that “the bones in her neck and wrists” are easily visible (77). 

Lauren struggles at work in part because of her self-image issues, but also because her daughter, Rebecca, is the target of bullying at school. Lauren is distracted by Rebecca’s troubles, and before the ill-fated hike, she has begun to turn in work late and miss important meetings, and she also neglects to give her full attention to key projects. Although Lauren is initially portrayed as the only member of her group to genuinely like Alice, the author ultimately reveals the complex and fraught nature of their relationship. Alice, as a teenager, pretended to befriend Lauren in order to bully her further, and Lauren has long nursed a deep resentment over Alice’s history of cruel behavior. That resentment boils over when Alice allows her own daughter to bully Lauren’s, and it is ultimately Lauren who accidentally kills Alice.

As Daniel Bailey’s sister, Jill Bailey is a key part of Bailey Tennant’s leadership. Like Daniel, she is driven and hardworking, and she defines herself largely through her career. She “doesn’t make excuses” and is willing to work hard even when she lacks motivation (23). In the context of the hike, she takes her leadership role seriously and becomes the group’s unofficial leader during the disastrous excursion. Although she is not dictatorial and is interested in her party’s input, the group’s dynamics soon indicate that Jill is determined to have the final say in any disagreement. 

The narrative also reveals that despite Jill’s dedication to the company, she dislikes the corporate world and never wanted to go into the family business. She “was an English and art history major” and wanted to be a teacher (128), but her strong sense of duty compelled her to acquiesce to the family’s expectations and join Bailey Tennant. Even in the midst of her own dedication to continuing the family legacy, she adamantly refuses to allow her children to be sucked into the world of Bailey Tennant. This is in part because she is dimly aware of her father and brother’s financial crimes and disapproves of their activities, but her reticence also stems from her resentment over being forced to give up her dreams. She wants her children to forge their own paths, and because Daniel’s son will take over the company someday, she has decided that her offspring do not have to give their lives to the company. Jill’s dedication to her children reflects the novel’s broader examination of the parent-child bond. Although Jill does not break the law to help her children, she does incur the ire of her family members, who disapprove of her choice to shield her children from the tedium of corporate life.