I first read French in 2010 when her debut novel “In the Woods” was published to great acclaim, receiving a number of major awards.  I then read her next five books featuring the Dublin Murder Squad. Her last novel, “The Searcher” left Dublin and took place in a small rural hamlet, Ardnakelty, and that is where “The Hunter” picks up the story.  Tellingly, I had no recollection I had read about Cal Hooper, Trey Reddy, and the other folks in Ardnakelty until I sat down to write this review and searched for her other books in my Book Journal.  Proves, once again, the value of keeping a book journal!

French was born in Burlington, VT but has lived most of her life in Ireland. Trained as a professional actor, she has achieved fame and notoriety as the queen of Irish detective stories.  In this one, Cal Hooper, his girlfriend Lena, and the 15 year old Trey Reddy are thrust into a complicated scam brought back to Ardnakelty by Trey’s father, the good for nothing Johnny Reddy.  Threatend with death if he doesn’t pay back money that went disappearing, Johnny involves the farmers of the town in a scam involving gold in the river.  French steadily tightens the level of tension until a murder occurs, nearly 300 pages into the book, and the final 100 pages sort things out in a credible and nail-biting manner.

This is not your average crime/detective mystery, and the Dublin Murder Squad appears only in Detective Nealon who is dispatched to solve the murder.  It’s primarily a study of small town dynamics, the relationship between Cal and Trey, and the Irish countryside and its rural inhabitants. The positive review in the Guardian praised the book as follows: “French made her name writing literary police procedurals. These two recent novels, though there are murders and mysteries to be solved, are of a different nature: slower, darker and more interior, their world meticulously created through layer upon layer of subtle interactions, where everyone goes at their conversations sideways.

It’s a good read, though I missed the gritty setting of Dublin and the finely drawn characters of the murder squad.