The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

The Hunter by Tana French is a murder mystery set in the hardworking village of Ardnakelty  in Ireland during an abnormally dry, searingly hot summer, oppressive to humans and animals alike. Nerves are on edge. The only relief for the farmers and shopkeepers is gathering for a pint or more at the local pub, to air grievances, spread gossip and, in French’s well narrated tale, fall prey to a con man from London who claims family roots in the village and has a get-rich-quick scheme to defraud them.

The principal characters are Trey (Theresa) a 15-year-old wild child of a single mother and a good-for-nothing father who had abandoned the family several years before. Her older brother, Brendan, is also gone, rumored to have been murdered, possibly by locals. Trey has learned carpentry from an American transplant, a divorced and retired cop name Cal, who takes a paternal interest in her, hoping to protect her from her drive to avenge Brendan’s death.  Trey’s biological father, Johnny, shows up unexpectedly and unwanted. He is in debt to the con man and involved in his scheme. Cal’s adult female friend, Lena, lives not far away, loves Cal and supports his caring for Trey. Lena is a gatherer of information and helps tie the threads of the story together.

The painted landscape of The Hunter infuses the story with color and sounds, almost making the setting a character in and of itself.  French’s people are complex, most of them a mix of good and bad, keeping the reader on edge about which aspects of their personalities are at play in any situation.  At times, the dialogue among the townspeople drags on too long, but French is a good storyteller. We don’t know the answer to this whodunnit until nearly the end.  The writing was good enough to persuade me to try out another of French’s several books.

I picked up The Searcher and found it was the prequel to The Hunter and really ought to be read before The Hunter. The Searcher takes place two years before the newer book and lays the groundwork for the story.  We meet Cal Hooper, the transplanted Chicago cop, when he is just settling into rural Ardnakelty. Cal’s relationship with Trey is revealed from its inception.  Trey’s ne’er-do-well father is off at locations unknown, but we quickly learn the depths of the family struggle he left behind. We become immersed in criminal behavior by good people in the absence of a credible law enforcement system. We empathize with the lengths to which people living on the edge must go to make their way in life.

How does one read the personalities of the characters in an insular town with its own standards of behavior?  How does one carve out a moral code to ground oneself while navigating a strange and complex environment? There are twists and turns, suspense, danger, injustice, character growth, touching bonds, all against the painterly language that places the readers into the Irish weather, lush fields ripe with animal life, rugged, dark mountain paths that hint of lurking peril and characters whose moral ambiguity leaves the reader ruminating long after the last page has been turned.