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jakewritesbooks 's review for:
Broken Harbor
by Tana French
Tana French has become one of my favorite crime authors. This is the 4th I've read of hers and all have been good in their own respective ways, though I found this one a bit lacking. The mystery is compelling, maybe the best mystery she's done since In The Woods. Cliche is forsaken at every corner for a quality story. Perhaps the best compliment I can give her is that every novel in her series feels unique, even if they all take place loosely in the same universe. The idea to take a supporting character from one book and make them the protagonist in the next is inspired and it keeps the series fresh. And even when I thought I knew for sure how this was going to end, she throws an extra wrench in there that almost took my breath away.
My issues here are more than nitpicks. I think they prevent the novel from being truly great. French usually does a good job of linking the main character to either the crime's location or circumstances. Here, it kind of falls flat. She wants me to buy into Detective Kennedy's big connection to Broken Harbor but it doesn't work for me. Neither does his background stuff. In fact, I found Kennedy himself to be poorly sketched. When he started talking about what made him a good, honest detective, I wanted to know more about that. But the family stuff, which French usually excels at, doesn't really work. Every scene with the Detective's family just served as a reminder that we were away from the good stuff. And while her series is always going to be centered on the detectives, I actually was more interested to know the perspective of the victims here, given how the crime ultimately turned out (won't spoil anything but it would make for a great horror novel).
Still, I enjoyed this book and I love this series. Four deep and I can say with confidence that Tana French is the best crime writer in the game right now. I will read anything with her name on it.
My issues here are more than nitpicks. I think they prevent the novel from being truly great. French usually does a good job of linking the main character to either the crime's location or circumstances. Here, it kind of falls flat. She wants me to buy into Detective Kennedy's big connection to Broken Harbor but it doesn't work for me. Neither does his background stuff. In fact, I found Kennedy himself to be poorly sketched. When he started talking about what made him a good, honest detective, I wanted to know more about that. But the family stuff, which French usually excels at, doesn't really work. Every scene with the Detective's family just served as a reminder that we were away from the good stuff. And while her series is always going to be centered on the detectives, I actually was more interested to know the perspective of the victims here, given how the crime ultimately turned out (won't spoil anything but it would make for a great horror novel).
Still, I enjoyed this book and I love this series. Four deep and I can say with confidence that Tana French is the best crime writer in the game right now. I will read anything with her name on it.