E-book Assessment: ‘The Hunter’ is a darkish and lyrical story of revenge, friendship and loyalty in collision
Cal Hooper fled a failing marriage, stop his exhausting job with the Chicago Police Division, and settled down in Ardnakelty, a fictional village nestled within the mountains of western Eire, hoping to search out some peace.
However in Tana French’s “The Searcher” (2020), he found that Ardnakelty isn’t a welcoming place. It’s a rural group that’s suspicious of outsiders. Its residents are contemptuous of presidency authority and reside by their very own guidelines.
Cal is aware of he won’t ever be certainly one of them, however now, in “The Hunter,” we discover that he’s not less than tolerated, made a few associates, and even discovered love with an area lady. Nonetheless, the brand new life he’s constructed for himself is threatened when Johnny Reddy abruptly returns to city.
Johnny, who’d deserted his household years in the past, is a con man whose items, the writer tells us, consists of “taking each phrase out of his personal mouth as gospel.” Cal feels “the urge to pat him down,” however Cal’s life in Ardnakelty depends upon minding his personal enterprise. So he tries to remain out of it, even when Johnny lures a few of the villagers right into a scheme to mine non-existent gold that supposedly washed down from the mountains.
Trey Reddy, a younger woman Cal befriended in “The Searcher,” is Johnny’s daughter. She’s an adolescent now, however nonetheless too younger, Cal says, to be trusted with one thing as momentous as her future. Trey despises her father and needs he’d by no means come again. She additionally hates the individuals of Ardnakelty, who she blames for the unsolved homicide of her older brother within the earlier guide. So she hatches her personal scheme — one that may wreak havoc on each the villagers and her father.
When Cal will get wind of what she’s as much as, he is aware of she is placing her life, and possibly his, in peril. He additionally is aware of he most likely can’t discuss her out of it.
The result’s a suspenseful story of revenge, justice, friendship and loyalty in collision, and of a younger woman who should determine which conflicting values matter most. The temper is darkish, the strain is thick, and the stakes are excessive. And as ordinary, in a Tana French novel, the characters are well-drawn, the dialogue is great, the settings are vivid, and the tight prose is commonly lyrical.
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Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Thriller Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the writer of the Mulligan crime novels together with “The Dread Line.”
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AP guide critiques: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews
