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BROKEN HARBOR
by Tana French
Viking, July 2012
450 pages
$27.95
ISBN: 0670023655


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Those who have read Tana French's books know her novels are as much about the detective protagonists as they are about the murder mystery. And her protagonists have lives as messy and secretive as the people they are investigating.

It's no different in BROKEN HARBOR, the fourth in French's loosely linked series, which features a different detective from the Dublin Murder Squad in each novel. Here, Det. Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy returns from a minor role in the previous book, FAITHFUL PLACE. Unlikable and rigid in that novel, he is fleshed out much more here – still a very much by-the-books cop, but also an intelligent, moral one.

Kennedy is called in to a horrific homicide – a father and his two young children have been slain; the mother is barely hanging on to life after also suffering knife wounds. Amid the grisly scene at the Spain family's suburban home, there are signs of bizarre goings-on: holes in the walls of their pristine house, video baby monitors in unlikely places, and a huge animal trap in their attic.

How does this fit into Kennedy's black-and-white view of crime? "Most victims went looking for exactly what they got," he tells his new partner, rookie Richie Curran.

But this hardly seems the case here. Pat and Jennifer Spain were devoted to each other and to their children. Yes, Pat had lost his job, but the family was still making do. Then again, they also lived in a ghost town – Brianstown, a new development that was never finished when the builders ran out of money. Their beautiful house sits amid half-finished structures and vacant lots. "Village of the damned," as Curran calls it. And it's an apt description, for the seaside town used to be called Broken Harbor, and it's where Kennedy and his family spent their summers in a camper. Rather than holding idyllic memories for Kennedy, it's a place soaked in painful memories. French slowly unspools this other thread, giving us a masterful novel that's all about good intentions gone wrong.

§ Lourdes Venard is a newspaper editor in Long Island, N.Y.

Reviewed by Lourdes Venard, August 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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