Tana French is known most widely for her Irish Dublin Squad literary crime series. They are highly regarded and French has a large devoted fan base. Her novels mostly focus on the relational and psychological aspects of the crime and police procedurals, as well as the personal lives of the detectives on the case. All of her characters, including the detectives, are endearingly flawed and the writing is atmospheric, thoughtful, and suspenseful. This is the 4th in the series which begins with Into the Woods, which I have not yet read, but I don’t think it’s necessary to read her books in any order. She also has a few stand-alone novels, one of which I read recently called The Witch Elm. It was mentioned by one reviewer that her books are particularly engaging in the audio format because the Irish accents enrich the reading experience.
In a new luxury housing complex in Broken Harbour (situated on a gorgeous beach but half-built, half-inhabited, and half-abandoned), two children and their father are found dead. The mother is on her way to intensive care. This is not a spoiler, it happens very soon in the novel. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder Squad’s star detective. At first he and his rookie partner, Richie, think this is a simple one: Pat Spain was a casualty of the recession, so he killed his children, tried to kill his wife Jenny, and finished off with himself. But there are too many inexplicable details and unusual evidence pointing in other directions. Detective Scorcher’s personal life is tugging for his attention because his family has history in this beach resort of Broken Harbour and it’s haunting him. So while he’s mentoring his new partner and solving the case, he has his own problems to sort.
It started out good, and I really wanted to like this book. I did like the writing and the detectives’ banter and investigative strategy, but this was my second attempt at this author and though I really liked the first two-thirds of both novels, it all fell apart for me after that and I found them too long, too implausible, and the direction of the story just not working for me. So my conclusion has to be that Tana French is a good author, but just not right for me, and that’s ok. Anyone who is part of a book club has been the outlier in either really liking or really not liking a book. I think I will still give it one more try with the Dublin Squad series, since I actually have a copy of the very first one Into the Woods. Maybe three times a charm! Fingers crossed! 🙂
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