Like Tana French’s previous novel, The Witch Elm, The Searcher is a standalone novel. French is best known for her Dublin Murder Squad series, and it seems that fans of that series may have a harder time with her standalone works. The Witch Elm was a tour de force, and so is The Searcher.

The plot is simple enough. Cal has retired from the Chicago police and moved to rural Ireland. He lost his wife recently and he wants a quiet life in a new location. He has purchased a house on the edge of a small town that needs a lot of work doing to it. He plans to occupy himself by doing that work. 

Then Cal encounters Trey, a local teen who hangs around his house. Trey starts helping Cal around the house, working on repairing furniture. It turns out that Trey has a missing brother. Trey knows Cal is an ex-cop and asks Cal to look for him. Initially reluctant, Cal eventually agrees. The rest of the story is about the search, learning what is going on in the town, and Cal working out how to tell Trey what he finds out. 

The story of Cal and Trey is almost the stuff of cliché. The older guy who is isolated and who has lost his main purpose in life meets a younger person in need of help. With a number of bumps along the road, they help each other adjust to their changing lives. French writes in very straightforward prose, with lots of dialog. There are very few adjectives. Many sentences are short. There’s nothing overtly fancy about the writing. 

Yet at the same time, the story conveys both Cal’s state of mind, and his gradually increasing understanding of how things work in this part of the world. The Searcher is a satisfying book to read, and it has a rich emotional tone. Impressive. 

Christian Perring is editor of Metapsychology Online

Categories: Fiction

Keywords: fiction, literature