Review: The Searcher

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

'A small place. A small town in a small country. It seemed like that would be easier to make sense of. Guess I might have had that wrong.'

THE SEARCHER is Tana French's latest captivating novel. Like her last, THE WYCH ELM, the book is a standalone, unconnected to her excellent Dublin Murder Squad series, although the protagonist in this case is a policeman or, at least, a ex-policeman. Cal Hooper is a 48 year-old retired Chicago detective, disillusioned and somewhat burnt out, who has relocated to a small village in the west of Ireland, to a dilapidated cottage which he intends to fix up, as he rebuilds and mends his psyche. Cal is befriended by Trey Reddy, a local kid whose brother has disappeared, he begins to investigate, initially reluctantly; less so as it becomes clear that not everyone in the village wants Trey's brother found.

THE SEARCHER is a slow-burn, unhurried, character-driven story, full of the gorgeous, descriptive, evocative writing for which Tana French is known. After a phone call to his daughter, Cal feels 'a sense that somehow, inspire of having been on the phone all that time, they haven't had a conversation at all; the whole thing was made of air and tumbleweed.'. A character has 'the look of a woman who's had too much land on top of her, not in one great big avalanche but trickling down little by little over a lot of years.'

It is perhaps not accidental that the title of the novel is almost that of John Ford's 'The Searchers'. The feel of the novel is that of a western set in rural Ireland, particularly a scene in which Cal and another character keep watch through a restless night, anticipating some attack on the house. This is not the romanticised Ireland of The Quiet Man or, if it is, it is now blighted by unemployment and the drugs trade. There is a melancholy, a feeling of inevitability to the events of the novel. And it is very, very good.

I have liked all of Tana French's books. FAITHFUL PLACE is my favourite and THE SEARCHER, whose theme and tone echoes that earlier book, comes very, very close.

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