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"Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets"--… (more)
French excels at the slow burn mystery, and this first installment in her newest series is no exception, plus is filled with the atmosphere of the Irish countryside. ( )
This book is slow moving but worth it in the end. The ending left me unsettled. What is justice? Did Cal abandon his moral code or embrace a new definition of morality? Don't the poor an underprivileged deserve justic? ( )
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Roger Clark. He's a new narrator to me but he did a good job of the various accents required.
Cal Hooper is a retired American cop who has bought a house in the west of Ireland. He seems to have left most of his life back in the States, a situation brought on by a mistaken shooting by his partner. He plans to fix up the house and get some fishing in and knock back a few pints at the local pub. He starts noticing someone hiding in his shrubbery as he works outside He finally coaxes the watcher into coming to help him repair dresser he's working on. Trey Reddy is thirteen years old and it turns out there is an ulterior motive in getting to know Cal. Trey's older brother, Brandan, disappeared some time ago and Trey wants to know what happened to him. The local police have washed their hands of the disappearance, mostly because the Reddy family is one of the poorest in the neighbourhood. Trey's father disappeared some years before, leaving the mother to care for the children as best she can. The police figure Brendan has lit off for the bright lights and eventually he'll come back or at least get in touch. But Trey knows that Brendan wouldn't leave without saying goodbye and wants Cal to look into it. Reluctantly. Cal agrees but says that Trey has to earn his work by helping out on the renovation. What Cal doesn't know but the rest of the neighbourhood does is that Trey is female; when he is finally told by his neighbour, he quickly bans Trey from the house. But he doesn't stop investigating Brendan's disappearance and he's starting to worry some bad guys who may have had a hand in Brendan's disappearance. There is rather a lot of violence hidden in this bucolic spot; Cal's not worried for himself but when Trey turns up on his doorstep badly battered he sees red. He's determined to protect Trey and solve the mystery but what he discovers isn't good news although it is a closure of sorts.
I understand there's a sequel to this book which I will probably read although I'm not a whole-hearted fan of Cal Hooper. ( )
The Searcher, her latest novel, is a big disappointment. Her Murder Squad books (well, the three I have read so far) and The Wych Elm, all demonstrate how well French knows Dublin, its people, its prejudices, and the recent history of corruption cases. The Searcher is set in rural Ireland and I am afraid she did not show the same level of understanding of the country communities as she did of Dublin and its people. ( )
Another strong showing from French. As with many of her other works, it’s a bit slow to start and never break neck and peace, but it’s settled into a nice rhythm. I really enjoyed these characters and would love to see more now that we know them. ( )
When Cal comes out of the house, the rooks have got hold of something.
Quotations
All Cal gets off him is urgency, so concentrated that it shimmers the air around him like heat coming off a road.
Her belief is built purely out of hope, piled on top of nothing, solid as smoke.
"Nah," Cal says. "I gotta recover." He doesn't feel any desire to go to Sean Og's, tonight or in general. He always liked the glint and speed of the men there, of their talk and their shifting expressions, but now, when he thinks back, all that looks different: light flashing on a river, with who knows what underneath.
"Teacher was giving me hassle today. For not paying attention. I told her I don't give a shite." "Well, that's not bad," Cal says. "It's unmannerly, and you shouldn'ta done it. But it's not a question of morals." The kid is giving him that look again. "That's not manners. Manners is like chew with your mouth closed." "Nah. That's just etiquette." "What's the difference?" "Etiquette is the stuff you gotta do just 'cause that's how everyone does it. Like holding your fork in your left hand, or saying 'Bless you' if someone sneezes. Manners is treating people with respect." "I don't always," Trey says. "Well, there you go," Cal says. "Maybe it's your manners that need work. You could do with keeping your mouth shut when you chew, too." Trey ignores that. "Then what's a question of morals, so?" Cal finds himself uncomfortable with this conversation. It brings back things that put a bad taste in his mouth. Over the last few years it's been brought home to him that the boundaries between morals, manners and etiquette, which have always seemed crytal-clear to him, may not look the same to everyone else.
"Morals," he says in the end, "is the stuff that doesn't change. The stuff you do no matter what other people do."
"If you don't have your code," Cal says, "you've got nothing to hold you down. You just drift any way things blow you."
"I just try to do right by people," Cal says. "Is all."
Alyssa spent months trying to strike up a relationship with their neighborhood pigeons, who as far as Cal could tell were too dumb even to identify her as a living creature rather than a weird-shaped food dispenser.
Wind, wearing to halfhearted gusts, ruffles the fire. It's burning low again, the heart of it darkening to a deep orange glow.
Outside, the small birds are starting to toss our scraps of morning conversation, and the rooks are bitching at them to shut up.
Cal learned a long time ago never to underestimate the spectacular natural wonder that is people's stupidity.
"You figure they woulda kilt you?" "Who knows," Cal says. "I'm fine with not finding out."
Cal finds himself with no feelings and no thoughts. He's moved into a place that he knows well from the job: a circle where even the air doesn't move, nothing exists but the story he's hearing and the person telling it, and he himself has dissolved away to nothing but watching and listening and readiness. Even his aches and pains seem like distant things.
"Life seems like a big thing when it takes four days for all of it to leave a man. When it's gone in a few seconds, it looks awful small all of a sudden."
She looks like a cruel tension is leaching out of her, notch by notch, leaving her whole body slack to the point of helplessness.
The idea of a world with no quest in it has left her lost.
Above his garden, the sky is a mess of high sharp stars.
The mischievous grin in her voice make Cal grin back, right across half the world. "Hey," he says, mock-offended. "I could run. If I wanted to."
All her confidence and competence blow Cal clean away. His baby girl is, somehow, a grown adult who knows how to get shit done and done well; who knows things, and has skills, that he doesn't.
The land has left its luring autumn self behind and put on a new, aloof beauty. The greens and golds have thinned to watercolor; the sky is one scoured sweep of pale blue, and the mountains are so clear it seems like Cal can see each distant clump of browning heather, sharp and distinct.
It catches him with a twist of loneliness.
On the flat grassland below, the fields spread out shorn and pale in the sharp sunlight, divided by walls that lie along reasons that were forgotten centuries ago.
As they climb higher the cold sharpens, slicing through Cal's layers and pressing its edge into his skin.
All around them the plateau lies flat and wide. Long grass and heather bend, autumn-bleached. Small shadows drift across them, from wisps of clouds.
They pass fragments of old stone-wall field boundaries, and sheep's hoofprints in muddy patches, but they don't see another living creature anywhere on the way. The day has disoriented Cal enough that he finds himself wondering if Mart has somehow warned everyone and everything in the townland to stay hidden today, or if he and Mart have wandered into some time-free zone and they'll come out into a world that's moved on a hundred years without them.
He lifts his crook in a salute and hobbles off, with the low winter sunlight laying his shadow a long way down the road behind him.
It's a beautiful wintry day, with wispy brushstrokes of clouds in a thin blue sky. The afternoon sun lies lightly on the fields.
Last words
After a while he opens the cake, and they break off a chunk each and sit on the grass to eat it, listening to the rooks exchange views and watching the shadows of clouds drift across the mountainsides.
"Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets"--
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Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After 25 years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets.
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