Review: Broken Harbor

5 stars. Broken Harbor ---> Broken Heart. This one was excruciating, and I caught myself with a clenched jaw more than once. I don't think I know of another author who can write so deeply about serious, acute, emotional pain. Why do we love this stuff?! I don't know, but I can't wait to dive into the next one, lol. If I were to rank the Dublin Murder Squad books, this one would be near the top.

The mystery: a family is found murdered in a stalled housing development near the ocean, outside of Dublin. (The setting: appropriately gloomy, isolated, half-constructed and half-abandoned, bleak and freezing cold.) Patrick Spain has been brutally stabbed, and his two children smothered in their beds. Jenny Spain, having suffered a similar knife attack, has survived and is in the hospital. Our hero: Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, strolling onto the scene with his own story after his cameo in Faithful Place. Step right up to the plate, Scorcher, it's your turn for one of those classic Frenchian life-altering, terror-inducing, world-shattering mysteries that leaves us, as witnesses, equally shattered.

Honestly, not sure how I'm going to get through this spoiler-free, so FYI - SPOILERS AHEAD. You've been warned.

Kennedy, like most of French's protagonists, starts his book confident and capable, having stuffed a painful past into an ordered, black-and-white, neat and tidy life. To him, there's a reason, or an explanation, for everything. Even caring for his mentally ill sister has strict parameters - a deep-seated strategy he refuses to veer from. He's good at his job, he follows the rules, and he keeps his temper under control. Control the chaos - that's his thing. Without control, he's adrift. Everything’s adrift.

(I've read him described as a really unlikeable protagonist - not to me. Toxic boss behavior aside, I loved him. Or maybe, I understood him.)

And I totally thought we were going to witness the crumbling of that carefully-built lifestyle, from start to finish. I totally thought the lesson would be that his need or desire to have control = a futile, useless effort, all the way. The final act (by this I mean, Dina and Richie's betrayal) was a swerve, and a satisfying one. I was glad, honestly, to see Kennedy, not totally, but just slightly, justified. I was glad to see his need for control even mildly validated, even if he didn't want it to be, necessarily. Even if I didn't want it to be. (Again, I'm referring to Dina and Richie's actions - nothing pertaining to the case itself.)

Does that make sense?

Probably not.

Re: the case itself - French always weaves Ireland's Issues - economic and otherwise - into the narrative and it's phenomenal (and phenomenally relevant) here. The precise clarity with which she writes about shattered hopes and dreams is almost horrific. And I loved the animal aspect. When we got to read the wildlife forum posts, it was a genuine WTF moment for me. A couple of the clues weren't exactly ... groundbreaking, but they unfold themselves nicely enough. It's a scary case, though the scariest moment for me personally involved considerable damage done to an alphabetized bookshelf.

I always think of Tana French's books as Very Adult. They're wordy, thinky, contemplative. When I pick up something by her I have to be in the mood to 1) pay attention and 2) wallow in something muddy for a while. Though she nails family dynamics well, I was glad they were on the lighter (though no less dramatic) side here. I LOVED THE ENDING. I loved the themes. The Witch Elm was disappointing and very feel-bad, but I'd love to keep going with this series and check out The Searchers.

Broken Harbor on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads