Tana French's The Witch Elm
This is French's first stand-alone (outside her Dublin Murder Squad series) and it feels . . . unexpected. It’s the story of a man in his late 20s, a happy go lucky guy with a good job and a great girlfriend. Everything goes his way. Until a burglary in his apartment leaves him with a traumatic brain injury and other assorted issues, and he goes to live with his uncle who's dying of cancer, and a skull turns up in the garden. French builds up to all that, though. I will say that I did find the narrative voice very compelling, and the mystery was interesting enough, but a very ugly scene at the end felt out of place to me and kind of turned me off. I understand WHY it’s included, I suppose, but it didn’t work for me. It just left me feeling a bit disconcerted. I guess this is more of a psychological portrait than a straight mystery, and it is well written, but I don’t think I’ll be revisiting it. B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in October.
Content warning for threats of sexual violence and a lot of other violence.
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