Tana French is an author I’m Very Normal about. I recommend her books to anyone who so much as hints they like mystery in my vicinity. I keep one of her books (Witch Elm) on my shelf, unread so I don’t have to face the feeling of running out of Tana French. Like I said, very logical behavior; I am Very Normal.
So, when I got The Hunter from Net Galley last week I definitely behaved Normally and didn’t, say, scream loudly on the sidewalk when the email came through on my lunch break walk, or bring my e-reader everywhere I went including the bar and my friend’s birthday party. Very. Normal.
Let me start this review with, if you haven’t read anything by Tana French, this shouldn’t be your first one. And if you haven’t read her most recent book, The Searcher, you shouldn’t read this one yet either. It’s a direct sequel, unlike Dublin Murder Squad, and it will spoil The Searcher. If you’re wondering what Dublin Murder Squad is read on, if you’re not, skip to the review.
Beginner’s guide to Tana French:
Tana French is an Irish author with two different series and one standalone novel. If you’re new here the best place to start is Dublin Murder Squad. That’s her first series and also, I would argue, her best. Start with either her first book, In the Woods or The Likeness (some people find In the Woods frustrating is the only reason I offer The Likeness as an alternative, but either will take you on a ride and you can’t really go wrong). After that, you can read around in basically any order. Each novel is about a detective on Dublin Murder Squad, so they are connected. Characters pop up in other character’s books and it’s fun to weave all the cameos together. My personal favorite is Faithful Place, but I do think that one is better if you’ve read The Likeness first.
Her most recent series, The Searcher, and now, The Hunter, is all about Cal Hooper, an American ex-cop from Chicago who goes to retire in small town in Ireland called Ardnakelty. It’s like an Irish western. A new sheriff blows in to a town that has a law all its own and a kid with a missing brother starts interrupting his peaceful battle with the land and the rooks (like a rough and tough version of Poirot and the vegetable marrows he’s always threatening to grow). You definitely could start with The Searcher if you wanted to, it has no connection to the others.
The Witch Elm is a standalone. From what people have told me, I wouldn’t start with this one, but I can’t really comment, I haven’t read it. For Normal Reasons, see above.
Whatever you choose, you’ve got some seriously great writing ahead of you and I am jealous that you get to experience it for the first time.
Yeah, yeah I know all that, tell me about The Hunter already (no spoilers for The Hunter, but since this does take place after The Searcher there might be some mild spoilers for that ahead):
The Hunter has all of the usual marks of a Tana French book. The prose is writers’-envy inducing as always. There are sentences of hers that I think I literally could not come up with in a million-trillion years (actually that’s, like, most of them). There are sentences that feel so intense it’s like they sprang out of the book and actually punched you in the gut. There are other sentences that are laugh out loud funny just when you least expect it. I won’t relay the rest of this joke so you can enjoy it for yourself, but one character calls the whole Ottoman Empire “some boyos” and I died laughing.
Her characters are, as ever, the star of the show. The events of The Hunter take place a couple years after the end of The Searcher. Cal, Trey and Lena are all in a really good place. Cal did adopt that dog! Trey has one, too! The dogs are friends and Trey is learning carpentry and getting good grades and Cal makes all three of them pizza. It’s adorable! If you’ve read even one Tana French book, you’ll know that “all the characters you like are doing really well” is a frightening and probably emotionally devastating place to start.
When I read Searcher, I think I was holding the fact that it isn’t Dublin Murder Squad against it. If I was ranking Tana French books (a challenge!) I would have put it near the bottom. I also don’t love westerns, which didn’t endear me to it. Still a really great book, not a favorite. For The Hunter, I was over that. Within five minutes of reading, I was struck by how much I like these characters. Cal is complex and way more than your cookie-cutter tough guy with a heart of gold. Trey only gets more and more fascinating as she gets older and Lena I just unapologetically like. She lives on her own terms with several dogs. I mean, what’s that if not living the dream? And the town of Ardnakelty is still at once picturesque and brutal. I forget a lot after I’m done with a book, and it took picking up the sequel for me to realize just how real these characters felt and still feel. I could jump right back in without needing to look up a summary of Searcher.
The delight in this book comes from Tana French’s particular gift for creating characters with their own goals and different lengths they’ll go to achieve them. It’s the cross purposes, the alliances and machinations that make this book fascinating and exciting to the very end. I really was not sure how it would end for most of the book. She has a particular gift for writing teenagers — as we know from Secret Place — and that’s on display here too, with Trey. You understand Trey and at the same time want to scream at her and also give her a big hug and tell her it’s okay to cry (except she’d hit you, probably).
At about 75% of the way in, I didn’t even really care about the mystery because I was so fascinated by what the characters were doing and how each person’s actions would have consequences for the others. (Don’t worry if you are here for the mystery, Tana French made me care about it again, a lot, very shortly after that).
This book earns every one of its five stars and at the end of the day I liked it more than I liked The Searcher. So even if that one wasn’t your favorite, I’d say give this one a chance.
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