BOOK: Broken Harbour by Tana French

Broken Harbour by Tana French, 533 pages

Ireland Reading Challenge; Series Goals (Dublin Murder Squad #4)

 It's a mystery series, but a most unusual series. The main character changes with each book. Sometimes previous main characters appear, but sometimes they don't. The only pattern I can see is that each main character made an appearance in the previous book. I guessed wrong from the last book, as this book has Mick 'Scorcher' Kennedy for our lead detective. I wasn't really impressed with him in the last book, but  he made a good main character and as more of his background was revealed, his character becomes more understandable.

The horrific murder here is a family that has been butchered, two children and the parents, with the wife hanging on in the hospital. Mick is juggling his own family issues, a mentally upset sister, along with training a new partner. The murder actually occurred where Mick and his family spent summer vacations, and there is some tragedy associated with Broken Harbour.

French writes about modern Ireland, including life after the economic bust after the boom. She can be a tad long-winded, but I am noticing this less with each successive book, and am enjoying her writing more with each book. Broken Harbour was a fabulous read, a touch Gothic, twists and turns, with wonderfully layered characters. As in the first book, In the Woods, there were a few threads left unexplained, but nothing is ever as it seems, and not everything can be tied up neatly. I appreciate this about French's writing. I can't wait for the next book by French.