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Summary
Summary
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by the Washington Post , TIME Magazine, BBC, TODAY, Elle, CrimeReads, and more
"Hailed as the queen of Irish crime fiction, French spins a taut tale of retribution, sacrifice, and family."--TIME
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Searcher and "one of the greatest crime novelists writing today" (Vox), a spellbinding new novel set in the Irish countryside.
It's a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.
Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He's found it, more or less: he's built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he's gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey's long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn't want protecting. What she wants is revenge.
From the writer who is "in a class by herself," ( The New York Times ), a nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we'll do for our loved ones, what we'll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.
Author Notes
Tana French grew up in Ireland, Italy, the US and Malawi. She trained as a professional actress at Trinity College, Dublin, and has worked in theatre, film and voiceover. Her first novel, In the Woods, won the 2007 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Her other books include The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, and The Secret Place. The Trespasser and The Witch Elm made the New York Times bestseller list.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Edgar winner French's slow-burn sequel to 2015's The Searcher underlines her knack for setting and character development. Teenager Trey Reddy is less than pleased by her ne'er-do-well father Johnny's unexpected return to the small Irish village of Ardnakelty to execute a get-rich-quick scheme he believes will finally enable him to provide for his family. On a recent visit to a London pub, Johnny claims to have spoken up when a stranger asked whether anyone present was from Ardnakelty; the man, Cillian Rushborough, then revealed to him that the village was home to a hidden trove of gold. Johnny's account is met with skepticism from Cal Hooper, the ex-Chicago cop who retired to the village and became a surrogate father to Trey after the events of The Searcher. Cal's suspicion proves warranted, and Rushborough's subsequent arrival in Ardnakelty sets in motion a series of crimes, including a murder, that upend Cal's and Trey's once peaceful existence. While this isn't quite up to French's best--the gears of the plot take too long to start turning--it's a pleasure to spend time with her finely drawn characters, and the murder investigation, when it finally gets underway, has impressive scope. This may be a step down from its predecessor, but it's still a cut above similar fare. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary. (Mar.)
Guardian Review
Tana French's 2020 novel, The Searcher, was an old-fashioned western transported to a contemporary rural townland in the west of Ireland, a place with its own definition of justice, where feuds and obligations go back generations and outsiders are regarded at best with suspicion. The Hunter - her ninth novel - is its sequel, building on the same complex relationships and moral ambiguities that gave its predecessor such rich texture. At the heart of the story is the original outsider, retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper, who was left at the end of The Searcher making an uneasy compromise between his professional understanding of right and wrong, and what that might mean in a place such as Ardnakelty. His choices in that book were shaped by a paternal desire to protect a lost and wayward adolescent, Trey Reddy. The Hunter opens two years on; under Cal's guidance Trey, now 15, is on her way to becoming an accomplished carpenter and shaking off her family's bad name. So when her feckless father, Johnny, waltzes back into town after four years' absence, with a dodgy Englishman in tow and a bold plan to find gold in the townland, Cal is again caught in tangles of conflicting loyalties and concepts of debt and punishment that have little to do with the law. Finally, the reader realises that every outcome must entail terrible damage French made her name writing literary police procedurals. These two recent novels, though there are murders and mysteries to be solved, are of a different nature: slower, darker and more interior, their world meticulously created through layer upon layer of subtle interactions, where everyone goes at their conversations sideways. Cal's exchanges with his wily neighbour Mart Lavin, the de facto leader of the local farmers, are still enjoyably comic, but here they are dense with subtext, made treacherous by Cal and Mart's shared history. French is one of the sharpest observers of dialogue in contemporary fiction, perhaps a legacy of her acting background. The ensemble set pieces - the group scenes in the pub - are choreographed with verve and clarity, and she captures the cadences of local speech without straying into cliche. She also has fun expanding the wild west theme to include the madness of a gold rush. Johnny's gold is a multi-directional con, but French evokes the mythic and enduring power of gold to enchant otherwise sensible men: "A solid thing appearing in front of the men's faces, brazen and undeniable, has a different kind of power, to which they're unaccustomed and against which they have few defences. She let the gold do its own talking." The Hunter is undeniably a slow burner, and this is one of its strengths (as long as the reader is forewarned not to expect a conventional crime novel). French ratchets up the tension in increments, until the reader realises, along with Cal, that the plan has escaped Johnny's control to a point where every possible outcome must entail terrible damage. By the end, these characters have taken on such solidity that, long after finishing it, I often catch myself wondering how they're doing - a testament to the author's mastery of her craft.
Kirkus Review
A divorced American detective tries to blend into rural Ireland in this sequel to The Searcher (2020). In fictional Ardnakelty, on Ireland's west coast, lives retired American cop Cal Hooper, who busies himself repairing furniture with 15-year-old Theresa "Trey" Reddy and fervently wishes to be boring. Then into town pops Trey's long-gone, good-for-nothing dad, Johnny, all smiles and charm. Much to her distaste, he says he wants to reclaim his fatherly role. In fact, he's on the run from a criminal for a debt he can't repay, and he has a cockamamie scheme to persuade local townsfolk that there might be gold in the nearby mountain with a vein that might run through some of their properties. (What, no leprechauns?) "It's not sheep shite you'll be smelling in a few months' time, man," he tells a farmer. "It's champagne and caviar." Some people have fun fantasizing about sudden riches, but they know better. Johnny's pursuer, Cillian Rushborough, comes to town, and Johnny tries to convince him he could get rich by purchasing people's land. Alas, someone bashes Rushborough's brains in, and now there's a murder mystery. The plot is a bit of a stretch, but the characters and their relationships work well. Trey detests Johnny for not being in her life, and now that he's back, she neither wants nor needs him. She gets on much better with Cal. Still, she's a testy teenager when she thinks someone is not treating her like an adult. Cal is aware of this, and he's careful how he talks to her. Johnny, not so much: "I swear to fuck, women are only put on this earth to wreck our fuckin' heads," he whines about Trey's mother, briefly forgetting he's talking to Trey. The book abounds in local color and lively dialogue. An absorbing crime yarn. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
It has been two years since Cal Hooper befriended Trey Reddy and helped the teen reconcile to the murder of her brother, Brendan. At least, she seemed reconciled. But when her absentee father, Johnny, comes back to town intent on perpetrating a swindle on the townsfolk whom she blames, Trey sees an opportunity to avenge Brendan's death. It has been a blazing hot and lazy summer, and the locals are excited to buy into a scheme to find a legendary vein of gold in the area. Johnny brings along a master con man to head up the operation, planning to turn the tables on him and run away with the money. When that man turns up dead, Johnny is the prime suspect, but when former Chicago detective Cal investigates, together with a man sent down from Dublin, things get very complicated, and everyone looks guilty. The entire complex cast of characters from The Searcher (2020) are back in all their eccentric glory, with Cal and Lena in a comfortable relationship. French's characterizations are brilliant, as always, and surprising strengths and vulnerabilities make for an often amusing, yet ominous and somber tale. The atmosphere is rich as the reader is reminded that this is the "real" Ireland and not the one idealized by the "plastic Paddies." Masterfully written.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: By picking up the story of her previous best-seller, much-lauded French guarantees peak interest.
