The
Hunter, by Tana French.
Tana French – Thank you!
It’s about time that we had a sequel to ‘The Searcher’, her spellbinding
story of seething, age-old enmities in the tiny village of Ardnakelty, new home
of ex-Chicago detective Cal Hooper. He
has been a resident of the village for two years now and in that time has made
some firm friends of the locals, has Lena, a ‘lady friend’ (a fact that the
village rumour-mill reports on with all the alacrity of a Sunday tabloid), and
a foster-daughter, Trey, to whom he is teaching his considerable knowledge of
carpentry and furniture restoration.
Life is pretty damn fine, thank you – until a bad apple turns up to
taint the barrel.
Trey’s dad Johnny returns to Ardnakelty, much to the
amazement and horror of his deserted wife and children, and Trey as the eldest,
is furious that he can just swan back to his tumbledown home as though he’d
never left, this time bringing a posh British mate with him, who is very
fascinated with his Irish roots – ‘yes, his dear old Granny came from
Ardnakelty, and with her she brought tales of Gold in Them Thar Hills’, and
pretty soon Johnny has stirred up everyone with tales of gold-bearing seams on
their farmland, if only they’d like to invest with him and his posh mate. And people seem to fall for it, to Cal’s
amazement – but as the weeks pass and Trey’s dad talks faster and faster with
less success, the ugly side of Ardnakelty begins to reveal itself: threats both veiled and plain are made if
Johnny’s scheme doesn’t show a profit soon, but what’s most troubling to Cal is
that Trey seems to be at the heart of them – on purpose.
It becomes very obvious that Trey wants her father gone –
by any means necessary, and she’s smart enough to orchestrate proceedings: Cal and Lena find that they have to get up
awfully early in the morning to be ahead of her to avert a tragic outcome, for
Ardnakelty is a pagan force unto itself;
old crimes and grudges are never forgotten and a 15 year-old must not be
allowed to sacrifice herself on an altar of hatred and revenge.
Ms French as always dazzles us all with her warts-and-all depictions of village life, her lyrical descriptions of breathtaking country, and her singular characters, from Bobby Feeney who believes in aliens to Mart Lavin, Cal’s neighbour who also seems to be the Ringmaster of Threatening Events: someone does die, but the victim and killer are a complete surprise – as they should be. And the Craic is first-class, so! SIX STARS.
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