Sunday Times and New York Times best-selling author Tana French’s The Searcher deals with a retired detective, Cal Hooper, who leaves his job in Chicago PD to settle for a quieter life in the west of Ireland. He finds a house in much need of repair in the small village of Ardnakelty. After years of city blocks, the vista of fields, hedges, sheep and a row of mountains soothes his tired soul.
However, things are a bit tangled in the district and he soon learns that it’s not a good idea to put your foot wrong. He hasn’t got the hang of the local Irish accent yet but he does feel mildly accepted.
Mart, his nearest neighbour up the road who is full of good advice, is a great talker and fills him in on local history. There is a colony of rooks on a tree outside his house and they seem to observe and comment on his every move. He likes them – having read somewhere that they are “smart as hell”.
While busy wallpapering and renovating, he starts having the feeling that someone is watching him but the hair rising on the back of his neck, intuition gained from over 25 years in the Chicago PD, knows it’s not the rooks.
Then one evening he catches someone peering through the windows. He ambushes the individual who turns out to be ferocious and fights back before running away. Cal then realizes from the size of the person that he’s dealing with, that this is a youngster.
As there is no follow-up, he puts it out of his mind and takes the desk that he’s fixing outside. Again the feeling that he is being watched and, assuming it’s the same youngster, he offers an invitation to give a hand with sandpapering.
Eventually a cordial and harmonious relationship develops as he encourages the teenager (Trey) to help him sand and renovate a desk. Things develop and Trey helps him with work inside the house and eventually opens up to conversations.
Trey knows that Cal is a retired detective and suddenly asks for his help in finding Trey’s brother Brendan who seems to have disappeared without trace. Cal agrees and so begins a complicated and all-consuming investigation to find out what happened to Brendan.
French’s story covers a wide number of well-developed characters from the blokes in the pub to the dog breeder Lena who helps Cal when things go horribly wrong. Her writing is highly descriptive about Cal’s surroundings so the reader feels transported into this soft misty rural landscape, can hear the rustling in the trees and hedges and can feel the energy in some hectic fight scenes.
At 392-pages, this suspense story takes time to unfold with all the various elements involved. A startling and riveting revelation takes place two-thirds of the way through the book but no secrets given away in this review! Read the book for yourself – it’ll be worth it!
Tana French’s The Searcher is published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books. ISBN: 978-0-241-45941-6 - Caroline Smart
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