Book review: Something brewing in west of Ireland thriller with dark past set for return

Tana French: Slow-burning novel which keeps the reader engaged as the mystery and intrigue builds up. File picture: Gareth Chaney

• The Hunter 
• Tana French 
• Penguin, €15.99 

Cal Hooper is a retired police detective from Chicago who bought a derelict cottage in the west of Ireland near a town called Ardnakelty, where he hoped to leave crime behind him. 

He is building up a new life there. He repairs and builds furniture and grows vegetables, he has a relationship with local widow Lena, and a de facto child, 15-year-old Trey, who is his protégée. 

Cal seems to have attained what he wanted, a peaceful, contented existence.

Trey is a fascinating character, half wild and angry. Her older brother Brendan vanished and we gradually learn that she is looking for revenge for what happened to him. 

Her mother struggles to survive with younger children to care for, after her husband Johnny abandoned them. She’s happy that Trey has Cal and Lena who care for her. 

Cal is a mentor to Trey, spending hours every day after school with her, teaching her how to mend old furniture, and he hopes her developing skills will give her the chance of a better life.

Everything changes when Johnny Reddy, Trey’s absentee father, returns. 

With him is Cillian Rushborough, a millionaire who Johnny says he met in a pub in London.

Rushborough claims that he wants to investigate his Irish roots and that his grandmother believed that gold was buried in the river bed nearby.

The whole town is shaken up by this news, with many locals caught up in the exciting possibility of getting rich. 

Cal, however, can spot a fraud. He’s also most concerned about protecting Trey from her father.

The novel is set during a long hot summer, unusually hot for Ireland. Farmers are worried about their livestock and crops. 

The heat which hangs over the area echoes the atmosphere created by the arrival of Johnny and Russborough, with a hint of menace and the feeling that something bad is going to happen. 

Johnny has never been trusted by the locals, and the money-making scheme stirs up old feelings of resentment and revenge.

It’s a slow-burning novel, which keeps the reader engaged as the mystery and intrigue builds up mainly through conversations. 

Cal’s relationship with his neighbour Mart evolves with the arrival of the two men from England. 

As an outsider, known as ‘the American,’ Cal is aware that at times he cannot be certain that he is correctly interpreting what locals tell him.

Lena’s presence in his life helps to bridge that gap. In her youth, Lena wanted to escape the village, but love intervened and she married and stayed there. 

She has managed to navigate her life around the locals by minding her own business, unlike her sister Noreen, who owns the only shop in the village, and dispenses gossip generously.

The characters, in particular Cal, Trey and Lena, are always likeable. Trey is the type of creation that will be remembered by readers long after finishing the novel. 

She’s rebellious, clever, loving but not demonstrative. Cal’s fatherly relationship towards her is touching and believable.

The rural Ireland in which French sets the novel is reminiscent of John B Keane’s Kerry, full of interesting and often eccentric characters, who seem to live in a world far away from the Ireland of today. 

One wonders if readers overseas would find the Ireland of
Ardnakelty if they visited.

The Hunter is the second novel by Tana French which is set in Ardnakelty and features the same characters.

In The Searcher, Trey had approached Cal about finding her missing brother Brendan, and that is how they developed their close relationship. 

French is also the author of the ‘Dublin Murder Squad Mysteries’ and is a multi-award winner for her novels.