The Hunter by Tana French

EXCERPT: Johnny always liked to make a fine entrance. When he turned up outside her window, he came smelling of expensive aftershave – robbed, probably – with his jeans ironed, every hair in place, and the Cortina waxed to a sparkle. He was the only fella Lena knew who didn’t have broken fingernails. Today his clothes are shiny-new right down to the shoes, and not cheap shite either, but his hair is straggling over his ears and flopping in his eyes. He’s tried to slick it into place, but it’s too overgrown to behave. If Johnny Reddy has come home in too much of a hurry to get a haircut, it’s because he’s got trouble following close behind.

ABOUT ‘THE HUNTER’: It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.

Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

MY THOUGHTS: I have rationed myself reading The Hunter, eking out the pleasure of being back in Ardnakelty with Trey, Lena and Cal for as long as possible. It’s a place I never want to leave. I love the characters Tana French has created, and the ambience of the setting.

Ardnakelty is a small, fictional West Ireland town. It’s the sort of place where you might think nothing ever happens. You’d be wrong.

The Hunter follows on from The Searcher, which you really need to read prior to this if you want to understand why Trey is hell-bent on exacting revenge. You will also get the background on Cal, a retired Chicago cop, his relationship with Lena, and why he is so protective of Trey.

The feckless Johnny is Trey’s father, returned home after a long absence; a man who is always looking for the easy way, a charmer, a man who tells a story well. A man not to be trusted. He wanders back into his home, and everywhere else, like he’d only popped out to get a packet of cigarettes, but with a story (or five, the story depending on whom he is telling it to) at the ready.

The Hunter is not a thriller although I was thrilled in a quiet way. When I put this down, I couldn’t wait to get back to it; to people like Tom Pat, named for both his grandfathers and still insisting on being addressed by both names even years after their deaths for fear of insulting one of them. The Hunter is very much a character driven novel, told in a very Irish way; meandering, wandering off track, before coming back to the point from an entirely different direction. I loved it, and if Ardnakelty were a real place, populated by these characters, I would go visit, maybe even stay a while, or longer.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

#TheHunter #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Tana French is the New York Times bestselling author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, The Trespasser and The Witch Elm. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Penguin General, UK, via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Hunter by Tana French for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.