Crime fiction is a subgenre in which the plot is driven by a focused investigation of criminal acts, whether conducted by amateurs, professional investigators, or law enforcement officers. Authors in this genre often hold back key information to invoke a sense of suspense and mystery, and the narrative typically focuses on the crime and its investigative aftermath rather than on post-arrest events or legal procedures. In addition to murder, crime fiction narratives can also feature topics such as sexual assault, stalking, white-collar crime, kidnapping, and missing persons cases. Thus, Force of Nature’s depictions of high-level financial crime, Alice’s disappearance, and Kovac’s serial murders combine to place the novel squarely within the crime fiction genre, and with Aaron Falk as its law-enforcement protagonist, the novel can also be classified as part of the “police procedural” subgenre. This recurring character also conforms to many of the typical tropes of the genre, for crime fiction notably features troubled investigators, police officers, or detectives who are simultaneously experiencing grief, loss, or addiction amid their external investigations. In this particular novel, Aaron Falk struggles to come to terms with his father’s death and the fraught dynamics that characterized their relationship, thereby becoming a prime example of the typical emotionally wounded investigator. 

Works of crime fiction abound within both contemporary and classic literature. Victorian author Wilkie Collins is often cited as an early author of canonical crime fiction. Although a prolific writer, he is best known for The Moonstone and The Woman in White. The Moonstone is often cited as one of the first crime novels: It features a suspenseful plot, a central mystery, and a detective protagonist. Its action centers around the theft of a priceless diamond of important religious significance and the investigation into the complex plot to steal it. The Woman in White features an investigator-protagonist and demonstrates the author’s interest in complex psychology and fraught family dynamics, examining mental illness and 19th-century gender roles and using eerie settings to create an atmosphere of distress and anxiety. 

Key figures from 20th-century crime writing include Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Chandler is famous for his creation of the hardboiled Los Angeles detective, Philip Marlowe, whose investigative prowess is contrasted with the various struggles in his personal life. The first novel in this series, The Big Sleep (1939), was also adapted into a successful film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Notably, the screenplay was written by American author William Faulkner, who wrote for Hollywood in addition to working as a novelist. Dashiell Hammett is especially known for his crime novel, The Maltese Falcon (1930), which features the troubled detective Sam Spade and focuses on Spade’s attempt to discover the truth about his partner’s murder.

Crime fiction is also a genre in which female authors shine. There are many notable contemporary female authors of crime fiction. Among them, Tana French stands out for her Dublin Detective Series, a set of six novels that follow various investigations among a rotating cast of detectives on the Dublin Police force. While Harper writes about the remote Australian outback, French crafts novels in which Ireland and Irish history play important roles. She uses her works to ask broader questions about guilt and innocence and also to explore Ireland’s complex history of involvement with the Catholic church and its fraught gender roles. Ruth Ware is another popular, best-selling female crime writer with a large fan base. Like Force of Nature, Ware’s thriller In a Dark, Dark Wood (2015) examines fraught interpersonal dynamics in a group of women who find themselves isolated together in a remote setting. Like Harper, she crafts characters whose clashing personalities add to an already tense situation, illustrating how group relations can quickly devolve under duress.