After a divorce Cal didn't see coming, and quitting the police force he worked for in Chicago, Cal has escaped to a remote small town in Ireland. He owns land and a house he is slowly fixing up. Just as soon as Cal makes Peace with his decision to move away from everything and everyone, he meets a mysterious boy whose request of Cal lead him down a familiar path he never planned on going down again.
I am a huge Tana French fan. I have read all of her published works (some more than once.) I knew after she concluded her Dublin Murder Squad series, I would need to adjust my expectations. I love, love, love, her writing. If she wrote a dictionary I would read every word, but these non-Dublin Murder Squad books are an ADJUSTMENT! Mostly what I have found in reading both the Witch Elm and The Searcher closely together is the lag in pacing. The Witch Elm really took its sweet time to get into the swing of things... but the Searcher towed the line of too slow a pace for me. In the end I loved the story enough to give it 5 stars, but the first half of the book was a slow trudge.
as always the complex layering of characterization and the breath taking sentence structures fed and nurtured me. After what felt like a very large amount of the lightest foreshadowing I have ever encountered, a really interesting plot showed itself. After the main plot took root, I was hooked. I loved the outcome and felt the familiar excitement of seeing one of her mysteries all the way through.
Both the Searcher and The Witch Elm have almost felt like debut novels to me. It feels like French is trying to find her rhythm after concluding her last series. I am here for whatever this woman does and I will continue to pre-order everything she writes, while secretly hoping she returns to writing Dublin Murder Squad books.
5/stars
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