The Searcher / Tana French

 

The Searcher by Tana French
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. If I had never read French's Dublin Murder Squad books, I'd probably be even more effusive. This author writes like a dream. Perhaps I was expecting too much, so I feel just a tiny bit disappointed, which is ridiculous as this is a fine mystery.

As I have observed many times, setting a mystery in a small community is the most efficient method. Fewer people to sort through for the sleuth and the reader. Plus you get to include the history of the people who live in this village and the impulse among the villagers to shut out the foreigner. Cal, as a retired American detective, is about as much of a stranger in rural Ireland as anyone could be.

I've lived in a small community, though not so small as this one. It's true, you know who deals the drugs, who's allergic to work, who's on the dole, who beats his wife and/or his kids. You know who is related to whom. It can be hard for the outsider to keep track of all these details. Cal misjudges his neighbours and conversely they don't realize how he is going to react either, causing more issues than either side thought there would be.

I'm pretty sure that French introduces a flock of rooks in Cal's back yard as a mirror to village life. They are hard to win over, skeptical, and wary. Cal often interprets their calls as derisive. They appear at book's beginning and end to make the full circle.

French did her usual thing, surprising me with little switcheroos. Maybe not a full scale twists, but definitely events that made me shake my head and refocus my eyes. Agatha Christie does that to me too, so she is in good company. And like In the Woods, she doesn't wrap everything up neatly or answer every question and I love that. I have yet to read The Trespasser, I started it once and got stuck. This makes me think that I should return to it and take another run at it.


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