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quadrille 's review for:
Broken Harbor
by Tana French
I thought of the other partners on the squad, the ones going strong after longer than most marriages: the deft balance with which they moved around each other; the trust as solid and practical as a coat or a mug, something never talked about because it was always in use.
4.5 stars! I've been slowly, sparingly doling out French's Dublin Murder Squad books to myself, because each one is such a treat and means I, tragically, have one less to read later. She always delivers absolutely lovely prose, tangled mystery plotting that catches me off-guard, and damaged detectives trying to do their best even as they foolishly take on cases that knock them askew, that hammer on all their past damage, that sit too-close-to-home.
In this one, we get to take a turn with Mikey "Scorcher" Kennedy, older hotshot homicide detective, and his newbie partner Richie Curran. It was so funny being with Scorcher for a bit, considering Frank Mackey's withering description from the previous book, [b:Faithful Place|7093952|Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad #3)|Tana French|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550500994l/7093952._SX50_.jpg|7350661]:
One of the many differences between Murder and Undercover is our attitudes to subtlety. Undercovers are even better at it than you think, and when we feel like a giggle we do love watching the Murder boys loving their entrances. These two swung around the corner in an unmarked silver BMW that didn’t need markings, braked hard, left the car at a dramatic angle, slammed their doors in sync—they had probably been practicing—and swaggered off towards Number 16 with the music from Hawaii Five-0 blasting through their heads in full surround sound.
And yet, going from such a source of comedy, now we get into his head and his methods and see why Scorcher chooses the BMW, his carefully-pressed appearance, his fixation on impressions and style. Over time, you dip into his past and his history, as it ever-so-slowly unfolds and you start to get a sense of how this man is cobbled together, his foundational desire to make sense of the world, his black-or-white belief in cause and consequence -- and thus how this particular murder case challenges him.
How the victims in the Spain family, and the setting of the abandoned housing development Brianstown (or Broken Harbor, as it was once known), intersects so perfectly with all these themes of keeping up appearances, class aspirations, the desperation to make everything perfect and just so. The damage that that takes. How class comes into play even with the witnesses, or deploying Richie's lower-class background as a strategic way to elicit simpatico from the witnesses. How Richie and Scorcher's strengths and weaknesses complement each other. I loved following their developing dynamic, as they start easing into their rhythm, discovering that effortless chemistry that comes with the best of partners (and was reminiscent of Rob and Cassie, from the first book, as you see another set of partners working their way towards that).
And I found myself thinking, mostly, about how from a lesser writer, Kennedy would've just been your average workaholic detective with a broken marriage behind him. But it's his family dynamics, and especially his relationship with his younger sister Dina, that make him into something else. I don't want to spoil much about the specifics of Dina, but it's fascinating seeing his hard, steely nature on the job compared to how soft and patient he is with his sister -- and yet also the book's unflinching depiction of the toll it takes being a caretaker, and how walking on eggshells around someone with mental illness is relentlessly tiring; how his life has been on hold for her for so long.
As ever, I always appreciate the way the narrative voice is re-telling the story, too, with the benefit of hindsight and the occasional dramatic foreshadowing re: where the cracks are showing. French doesn't ever shy away from divebombing a good thing. There are always real consequences to the choices and mistakes in these books, and it breaks my heart.
I'm not even saying much about the actual mystery, but suffice it to say that it's really engaging too, and just backed up by so, so much good characterisation and character work along the way.
tl;dr I forever love the Dublin Murder Squad series, and this one is also very good.
Some other favourite quotes:
Interesting fact from the front lines: raw grief smells like ripped leaves and splintered branches, a jagged green shriek.
***
He said, "Am I never going to live this down in the squad, no?"
"Don't worry about that. I'm on it."
He looked at me full face, for the first time since I'd got out there. "I don't want you watching out for me. I'm not a kid. I can fight my own battles."
I said, "You're my partner. It's my job to fight them with you."
That took him by surprise. I watched something change in his face as it sank in. After a moment he nodded.
***
Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they've cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never get the chance to happen.
***
Maybe it was my cracking knees and the stiffness in my neck as I had pulled myself up the scaffolding, the dragging sense that I was moving towards old and tired; maybe that was what made me all of a sudden want to know what the other lads talk about, into the long tedious nights, that brings them into the squad room the next day walking in step, making shared decisions with just a tilt of the head or a lift of an eyebrow. Maybe it was those moments, over the past couple of days, when I had caught myself feeling like I wasn't just showing a rookie the ropes; when it had felt like Richie and I were working together, side by side. Maybe it was that treacherous sea smell, eroding all my why-nots to shifting sand. Maybe it was just fatigue.