The Searcher

After retiring from the Chicago police force, Cal was looking for a quiet, solitary lifestyle where he could also recover (or maybe escape?) from his recent divorce. He finds a small, inexpensive fixer-upper in a remote Irish village. As he settles in, Cal gets to know a few people in the village, and with their help begins learning the ways of their deceptively different culture. And then Trey, a teenager from difficult family circumstances, comes into his life looking for help. Trey’s older brother Brendan disappeared six months earlier, and no one -- not even the police, or Trey’s mother -- seems interested in finding him. Trey knows Cal was once a cop and hopes he can help find Brendan. Cal doesn’t particularly want to take on show more an investigation, but can’t ignore Trey’s emotional state.

Cal takes advantage of being both the “new guy” and “not from around here” to ask questions of anyone he chooses, and does a pretty good job of making up legitimate reasons for asking. But he still manages to arouse suspicion, and runs into some roadblocks. As a reader, I quickly became disoriented, not sure who was trustworthy and who might be working to undermine Cal’s efforts. Tana French delivered a couple of good surprises, which I enjoyed, and while some elements of the “reveal” are obvious in hindsight, I didn’t figure it out on my own and I enjoyed the journey.

After being disappointed with French’s The Wych Elm, it was great to see her back on her game. show less

Another great enveloping read from Tana French. Her last book, The Wych Elm, felt a little bloated to me, and I had a few quibbles with it. But this time, she had me in her grip the entire time.

Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago police officer who has lost faith in the job and possibly in himself, and whose marriage has dissolved for reasons he doesn't feel he completely understands, has gone off to the Irish hills to regroup by buying a fixer-upper cottage. He hopes to find peace in a simpler life where few decisions involve life or death, and where his inclination to fix what's wrong can be satisfied by addressing physical objects like broken furniture and walls that need paint. Naturally, the universe isn't in full cooperation with this show more plan. When a neglected teenager starts hanging around, it soon becomes clear that Cal simply cannot turn away from a situation where his talents and experience might be all this kid has to count on. Suspense maintained at a proper level, occasional surprises that work without feeling contrived, and a heck of a good story with lots of wicked Irish humor. show less

Wow this was well-written. Not just, y'know, solid prose that doesn't get in the way of the story, but on every level, genuinely a level or four above, what a pleasure to dive right into something so well-crafted. The remote west of Ireland setting is brilliantly depicted in all its closeness and friendliness and its insularity and secretiveness. There's a magnificent scene of a night in the pub that manages to be hilarious and warm but also with a carefully and subtly conveyed sense of threat. The voice and point of view of the ex-Chicago divorcee cop are brilliantly maintained, the outsider's view as he navigates the landscape and personalities when unexpectdly persuaded to look into the disappearance of a local young man is show more splendidly sustained, his rocky relationship with the younger sibling who seeks him out both scary and touching. Fantastic plot, great characters, wonderful writing. show less

The Searcher by Tana French is the first novel I've read by Ms. French in several years, and once again, I am struck by how much I love Ms. French's stories. I don't know why it takes me so long to get to them, but they always fascinate me when I read them. She remains one of the best mystery writers today, and The Searcher is one more example of why she is.

Ms. French's mysteries are compelling, but, as in The Searcher, the story's strengths are excellent character development and fantastic world-building. I loved her fictional town of Ardnakelty so much that I started researching real estate in Ireland. The thing is that she doesn't idealize her setting in any way. She shows it in all its bigoted, muddy, rural glory, and I could not show more get enough of it.

Then there are the townsfolk who are now Cal's neighbors. The story would not be half as interesting without them. They run the gamut from larger-than-life to sketchy to busybody to town pariah, but they more than set the stage for the mystery that occurs. Collectively, they play against Cal's straight-laced former cop persona in a way that is highly entertaining and yet slightly threatening and suspicious.

While it has all the trappings of the "former cop forced to solve a murder" trope, The Searcher rises above that. Yes, there is a missing person, and Cal appears to be the only one capable of finding the person. However, I believe the story is not about the mystery as much as it is a self-reflection/redemption story.

Cal has been in Ireland for several months. However, when we first meet him, he is still adjusting to his retirement and carrying the baggage from his recent divorce. As he becomes more enmeshed in Ardnakelty and has plenty of alone time renovating his cottage, he reflects on his marriage, relationship with his daughter, and past cases. By the time Cal solves the mystery, we see a different man than the one we first met. I like his growth, seen in his relationship with his daughter and Trey. I particularly love that Ms. French does not revolve the story around the mystery but sneaks in an entire storyline about personal growth.

Reading another Tana French novel is like sipping a fantastic cup of coffee. It is a special treat that requires savoring, just like The Searcher. I will admit that The Searcher takes time to get going. Thankfully, the build-up is worth it because it means the characters and the setting are as in-depth as can be. This means that there is a richness to the story that few modern novels have. If you have never experienced the pleasure of reading anything by Tana French, The Searcher is a great place to start.

Roger Clark is a fantastic choice of narrator for this audiobook. His parentage and unique upbringing mean he has no issues with the accents of the Arknakelty inhabitants. And, let's face it, you know you want to hear that accent. Mr. Clark is also a fantastic storyteller. You hear the weariness of a retired cop in his voice and his wry amusement at Trey's antics. His voice is pleasing to the ear and never becomes conducive to sleep. I highly recommend experiencing The Searcher as told by Mr. Clark. show less

A new Tana French novel is always a long-awaited delight (if psychological suspense can be considered delightful; immersive, anyway). The Searcher differs from her other books in that it's set on the west coast of Ireland, in a small fictional village called Ardnakelty, and told in close third person instead of first. Also, the main character, Cal Hooper, is American, a retired ex-police officer from Chicago looking for a peaceful place to settle after a divorce.

But peace isn't exactly what Cal finds in Ardnakelty; a kid called Trey turns up on Cal's doorstep and asks him to find their older brother, Brendan, who disappeared a few months ago. Brendan was nineteen, so everyone else figures he just ran off, but Trey insists he wouldn't show more have done.

Quotes

It's occurred to him that he might have an undiscovered talent for letting things be. (49)

"They're a great place for getting rid of things, them mountains." (Mart to Cal, 143)

"You'd never know what maggot's ating someone's mind." (Mart to Cal, 143)

...the real mystery to which Cal would love an answer is how, while doing everything right as far as he can tell, he somehow manages to fuck everything up. (353)

"But every now and again it seems like things build up just a little bit higher than I can be expected to put up with." (Cal to Donie, 360)

"All's you can do is your best," he says. "Sometimes it doesn't work out the way you intend it to. You just gotta keep doing it anyway." (Cal to Trey, 389)

"Just seems like there oughta be some way to fix it."
"I know," he says. "I've never quite come to terms with that myself." (Trey and Cal, 419)

*Spoilers*

Brendan was planning to start a meth lab up in the mountains, but the older men in the village - including Cal's chatty bachelor neighbor, Mart - found out and stole all his equipment. When they confronted him, a punch that was meant as a warning turned accidentally fatal, and they buried him in the mountains. Mart warned Cal to stay away from the case, but ultimately helped him find Brendan's body to recover an heirloom watch to convince Trey of Brendan's fate. show less

This thriller was a banger. It had the spooky atmosphere of The Wicker Man—a stranger coming to town and trying to solve a disappearance, and all the locals seem to be conspiring against him. Yet the locals are also charming and friendly and give easy hospitality to this blow-in. What does it all mean? Then partway through the book, things shift, and it’s the main character Cal that I’m not sure if if I trust, not sure if I should be afraid of. Super readable and character-driven and eerie.

Cal Hooper, 48, retired after 25 years with the Chicago Police Department, and single since his wife Donna left him, bought a fixer-upper home in the [fictional] village of Ardnakelty in the West of Ireland. Since moving in, he was getting to know his neighbors, who seemed welcoming if intrusive, and gradually restoring the house. But then he started to feel a vague sense of threat as if someone were watching him. He finally managed to catch the culprit: it turned out to be 13-year-old Trey Reddy, a neighbor from a family considered to be the “white trash” of the area. Trey’s older brother Brandon was missing, and Trey was desperate to find him. Trey knew the local police wouldn't care, and fairly insisted that Cal, a former cop, show more had to help.

Donna always said that “Cal was addicted to fixing things, like a guy jabbing on and on at a slot machine, unable to leave it alone until the lights flashed and the prize came pouring out.” He allowed she was probably right. He set out to do what he could for Trey, albeit without any of a cop’s usual investigative technology, and find out if he could what happened to Brendan. Cal wasn’t so sure that Brendan didn’t just take off for greener pastures, but Trey was convinced Brendan wouldn’t do that. Cal, however, thought that “nineteen-year-olds, almost all of them, don’t have their feet on the ground. They’re turning loose from their families and they haven’t found anything else to moor themselves to; they blow like tumbleweed. They’re unknowns, to the people who used to know them inside out and to themselves.”

Nevertheless, Cal finds that indeed, something more sinister was afoot than he first surmised. It turned out Ardnakelty was full of secrets and pathology belied by its gorgeous setting. In this passage, Cal concludes his new surroundings are to blame for his initial blindness to what was going on:

“The morning has turned lavishly beautiful. The autumn sun gives the greens of the fields an impossible, mythic radiance and transforms the back roads into light-muddled paths where a goblin with a riddle, or a pretty maiden with a basket, could be waiting around every gorse-and-bramble bend. Cal is in no mood to appreciate any of it. He feels like this specific beauty is central to the illusion that lulled him into stupidity, turned him into the peasant gazing slack-jawed at his handful of gold coins till they melt into dead leaves in front of his eyes. If all this had happened in some depressing suburban clot of tract homes and ruler-measured lawns, he would have kept his wits about him.”

Cal and Trey are both physically threatened to stop looking into what happened to Branden, but neither one could quit. As the secrets of the town gradually become exposed, the danger to both of them increases.

Discussion: This story is quite different from Tana French’s Dublin murder squad series; rather, the pace is slow and the atmospheric tone dominates the plot. The characters are developed as richly as ever with French, however. My enjoyment of the book was somewhat hampered by the fact that I couldn’t stand one character in particular but, like Cal, I didn’t realize until the end that there was a deliberate reason for his obnoxious behavior.

The “big reveals” come out slowly, although there are plenty of unsettling scenes to build an ambience of understated and amorphous menace. Interestingly, while a host of social issues underlay the story, they are never overtly discussed; they are just there - from the ravages of poverty and resulting lack of hope and dreams; the alienation of young people in those circumstances and the behaviors they adopted to cope with or escape from it; the responsibility that accompanies being in a relationship; the importance of having a moral code; and above all, the notion of “frontier justice.”

French herself has said in interviews that this story is a nod to the John Ford Western, “The Searchers.” She observed:

“. . . one of the things I noticed was that the generic Western setting has a lot of resonances with the west of Ireland. There’s a harsh countryside that demands real physical and mental toughness from anyone who wants to make a living out of it. And there’s that sense that this is a place very far from the locus of power and lawmaking. It’s so far away that people can easily feel that the powers that be have no knowledge of their daily lives, and so if they want there to be a law to their society, a set of rules that makes their society function, they have to come up with those themselves.”

Evaluation: I prefer the Dublin murder series, yet this Tana French novel is such a beautifully written and complex story that I found myself still thinking about it long after I finished it. show less