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A review by gotoboston
Broken Harbor by Tana French
3.0
Another one of these books where I'm waffling on how to feel. Overall, I'd say it just slightly edges into a 3 star read, but just barely. It's closer to a 2.5 star read if Goodreads did half stars. French really excels with family drama. It's the mystery element that can sort of fall flat on it's face.
This mystery isn't overly bad. It's a locked room mystery in the most basic sense. Four people in a secure home, 3 found dead and 1 rushed to the hospital. Then things start getting weird with a potential stalker who may or may not be breaking in. Weird, erratic behavior, and other weirdness.
And the problem is.
Woah, okay, rant over. Basically, I was not really pleased with the mystery element because some of the narrative choices made. And I've noticed with French the more her books lengthen, the more weird crap she pulls out to try and make the length not boring. Except instead of adding thrills, it just leaves me feeling disgruntled and wondering if it actually made sense based on the characters' previous actions or if it was all just forced to prolong the plot.
This mystery isn't overly bad. It's a locked room mystery in the most basic sense. Four people in a secure home, 3 found dead and 1 rushed to the hospital. Then things start getting weird with a potential stalker who may or may not be breaking in. Weird, erratic behavior, and other weirdness.
And the problem is
Spoiler
if it was just that then this could have been a good thriller plot. Instead, this is over 500 pages long and French threw in several red herrings that felt ridiculously out of character. His partner, Richie, who from all description and behavior is a streetwise young man who edges just the slightest on the side of paranoid but definitely clever and a little empathetic, throws all of his wits out the window to hide the evidence of Jenny's crime. Which, weird. I didn't buy it. It felt contrived solely to force Scorcher into a corner to break his own blessed rules. Secondly, Dina. The whole Dina follows Richie home and streetwise, paranoid Richie doesn't immediately go nope, didn't fit. Sure, he'd try to handle things himself a little cause he likes to prove himself, but I thought at a certain point he had developed enough trust in Scorcher to call the man up and go, hey, your weird friend followed me home, is acting a little off. But, no, Richie instead sleeps with her and Dina, not at all acting mentally unbalanced even though she's been barely functional for most of the book, steals from Richie and then has a meltdown at the precinct. I'm not even sure how she knew that Richie had the evidence. Or if it was just opportunistic. Did she rifle through Richie's things after sleeping with him? Weird. Overall, it was just off. It added 200 pages of waffling and drama that was unnecessary. French could have had the same effect just with the whole weird wall behavior. No need for the whole Richie trying to cover for Jenny by forcing the Pat issue. There was no need to force it. Pat was plenty suspicious on his own given he had a wolf trap in the attic and a crazy amount of holes in the walls and weird ranting on the internetWoah, okay, rant over. Basically, I was not really pleased with the mystery element because some of the narrative choices made. And I've noticed with French the more her books lengthen, the more weird crap she pulls out to try and make the length not boring. Except instead of adding thrills, it just leaves me feeling disgruntled and wondering if it actually made sense based on the characters' previous actions or if it was all just forced to prolong the plot.