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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
If you hate your life and want to rip your heart into tiny shreds, this is the book for you!
Buckle up for faint praise: Even though each of French's books seem to follow a pattern of Murder Squad Detective Goes In Too Deep, even though Broken Harbor in particular favors a clunky method of relaying police procedural/forensics facts... I will STILL read all of the damn books, because they are total page-turners that keep me up half the night.
I liked this one a lot more than I thought I would. Scorcher wasn't a totally insufferable narrator. I think the same thing happened to him as it did to Cassie when she became a narrator, but the mellowing was good for him. He would've been awful otherwise.
I'm a little annoyed at the trend of detectives wrecking their careers by the end of the book. I'd like Tana French get away from this.
I'm a little annoyed at the trend of detectives wrecking their careers by the end of the book. I'd like Tana French get away from this.
I love a mystery that isn't just a straight whodunit, but has a very believable psychological underlying motivation. This story has that--and not just from the point of view of the "bad guy" but also from the point of view of the investigating officer and a couple other characters in the story. I came away feeling very sad but also very satisfied by the outcome.
This was my second Tana French novel, and I liked it less than the first. The setting is great, a crime against the backdrop of the Irish recession, but the point felt really hammered in after a while. The book is too long, and unlike in The Likeness, the personal life of the main protagonist felt a bit shoe-horned. I really liked the character of Richie, the rookie detective
The denouement is not surprising, but I think that's deliberate. In French's books, what should be a smooth-sailing, gripping investigation hurtling towards answers is always derailed because the detective's personal issues/views get in the way of easy conclusions. So the reader can (sometimes) predict the 'who' earlier than the book does, but this doesn't lessen the appeal of French's books, which are as much an examination of how we are shaped by things that happened to us, as they are about crime. In Broken Harbor, I really didn't care much for the protagonist's personal drama. What I did enjoy was the last third of the book -- where the creepiness of the events that lead up to the crime (which in itself is unsettling) unfolds.
Spoiler
but his abrupt departure towards the end of the book was a bit confounding and felt out of place.The denouement is not surprising, but I think that's deliberate. In French's books, what should be a smooth-sailing, gripping investigation hurtling towards answers is always derailed because the detective's personal issues/views get in the way of easy conclusions. So the reader can (sometimes) predict the 'who' earlier than the book does, but this doesn't lessen the appeal of French's books, which are as much an examination of how we are shaped by things that happened to us, as they are about crime. In Broken Harbor, I really didn't care much for the protagonist's personal drama. What I did enjoy was the last third of the book -- where the creepiness of the events that lead up to the crime (which in itself is unsettling) unfolds.
2.75✨
It could have been so good. It really could have done something.
Instead it did this.
It could have been so good. It really could have done something.
Instead it did this.
Interesting mystery, several red herrings and culprit was not expected. Small family in a house, attacked. Only 1 survivor. I listened to audio book and the detective’s sister was beyond annoying. Which I guess was the point.
Good story.
Good story.
After reading this and Faithful Place, both of which I loved, I feel I should go back to The Likeness and In the Woods. I liked those first two novels until their endings; I don't remember the exact source of my dissatisfaction, just that it was roused. With Broken Harbor, however, as with Faithful Place, French has written a story rooted in place and personal history and the desperation that can tear lives apart. Strange details keep you off balance, heightening the mystery and leaving your mind scrambling for satisfactory explanation. While I copped to the 'who' of the murders a bit before the reveal, Harbor's power lies less in the procedural than in the details of the fight ordinary people make against the darker, wild forces of our natures. Those struggles, the triumphs and capitulations, are as unique as they are universal.
I often swallow Tana French's books whole. As in, I stay up late into the night to finish reading this chapter or until this confession is over. Which inevitably leads to the next interview, the next clue, the next suspicious and/or creepy thing a suspect says. It's a vicious circle, I tell you. But it's a great vicious circle.
If you don't remember Mike "Scorcher" Kennedy from Faithful Place, you're not alone. I read both books within a couple months of each other and still wracked my brain wondering what he did in Place. I did find him to be one of French's more compelling narrators. I wasn't a fan of Frank Mackey in Place, and Rob Ryan in In the Woods has a backstory I still get frustrated talking about. But Scorcher's backstory and tie to the scene of the crime is compelling and just tragic enough to make me want to curl up in a ball and whimper at the end.
What is perhaps more compelling is his relationship with his newbie partner, Richie. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and oh man you'll root for them. And that's all I have to say about that.
Overall, a great book. If you liked Tana French's other works, you'll love this one. I'd rank it only second to French's other work The Likeness as far as the "series" goes.
If you don't remember Mike "Scorcher" Kennedy from Faithful Place, you're not alone. I read both books within a couple months of each other and still wracked my brain wondering what he did in Place. I did find him to be one of French's more compelling narrators. I wasn't a fan of Frank Mackey in Place, and Rob Ryan in In the Woods has a backstory I still get frustrated talking about. But Scorcher's backstory and tie to the scene of the crime is compelling and just tragic enough to make me want to curl up in a ball and whimper at the end.
What is perhaps more compelling is his relationship with his newbie partner, Richie. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and oh man you'll root for them. And that's all I have to say about that.
Overall, a great book. If you liked Tana French's other works, you'll love this one. I'd rank it only second to French's other work The Likeness as far as the "series" goes.