Genre: Mystery

This is Tana French’s eighth novel, but the only one I have had the pleasure of reading so far. This book is going onto my reference shelf - books that I pull out when I want to remind myself how to write a particular scene.

There are numerous levels to this book. First of all, the overall canvas of the story. French’s description of the sky, hills, fields, and weather provides a dynamic, visual background for all the events that transpire.

Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago police officer who buys a run-down house in Ireland. He believes the remote village to be peaceful and untroubled by crime and murder, a place where he can just quietly rehabilitate his run down house and watch the rooks scold him from end of his yard. That’s the way it starts - just sliding into the scenery.

Then there are the people. His neighbor, Mart, likes his cookies, but like everything else in this story there is more to Mart than his neighborly charm.

Cal goes drinking at the local pub and is induced into the local society, drinking some home brew. French does such an amazing job describing this evening that I was concerned that I was going to wake up with a hangover the next morning. She described one of the participants (I’m paraphrasing) as making a face like a toad licking piss off a nettle.

French layers the story on like the skin of an onion with a solid structure, wonderful characters, beautiful scenery and a bit of romance and violence to make it interesting.

The story is written in the present tense which I always find a challenge. There are backstory references in the past tense, but keeping the main stream of the tale in the present tense creates an immediacy to the words. It’s happening now as I’m reading it. It’s the kind of story that fits neatly within the covers - as though Cal’s life begins and ends right there and goes no further.

But the rooks are always there to comment.

It is an entertaining book, but it is also a master class in how to write a mystery without buildings exploding or planes falling out of the sky. Excellent. I’ll have to read more of Tana French’s books.