Broken Harbor by Tana French

Probably by now readers have heard of Tana French, who writes crime mysteries based in Ireland. She has a couple of psychological dramas out there already, like In the Woods and The Likeness. This novel, it seemed to me, exceeds her previous books. She has given us several crimes this time, revolving around a triple murder. There is lots of crazy…crazy that seeps up around everyone’s ankles and slowly, slowly comes up around their noses, threatening to drown the whole lot…detectives and suspects alike.

I listened to this on audio, published by Recorded Books, read by Stephen Hogan. The novel is in the voice of “Scorcher” Kennedy, who gets this major case after a long period working on smaller things. At the beginning he sounds ready, but when his family situation and the case converge and threaten to sink him, he reaches out to save himself.

Broken Harbor has been renamed “Brianstown” when, before the financial downturn, a large new housing development is created out on a strip of land so remote that people feel unmoored, even before the crash forced the builder to pull out. The few sold houses sit amid a ghost community, with unfinished foundations, rusting heavy equipment, and empty, unsold homes. The chilling truth is that this is the largest crime, the theft of lives long before a knife leaves them bloody on the kitchen floor.

Great story.


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