A review by mcfade28
The Wych Elm by Tana French

3.0

Again I have very mixed feelings about this book. Starting with the good, it was an interesting mystery and I really enjoyed the first two thirds of the book. Our protagonist Toby is viciously attacked near the start of the novel leaving him with serious injuries and a long road to recovery ahead of him. He then moves into his uncle’s house to help care for him, but when a skull is found hidden in the back garden, a long police investigation is launched.

I liked Toby’s sprawling family and the dynamic between them. The mystery was really intriguing until the last third of the novel and I had several theories as to the perpetrator at one stage.

Now onto the bad. At 500 pages this was needlessly long. So much of this mystery consisted of Toby and his cousins sitting around discussing the past, and it felt that several of these events could have been condensed.

Sadly I found the end utterly baffling.

Spoiler

I know Toby was slightly brain damaged, but I really could not follow why he decided to murder that police officer. It was very clear the whole family was going to get away Scott free, and all he had to do was let his snide comments go. Given this character was not previously prone to violence, this just seemed like a bizarre choice.

This is sadly one of those examples where a poor ending detracted from the whole novel. That being said I would definitely give another novel by this author a go.