The Searcher: A Novel Kindle Edition

I have read every French novel and enjoyed them up until now. This was so trite; like the quiet man, John Wayne, comes to evil small town. Also very poorly researched:**Important to note; Cal could not just retire to Ireland, as an American he would have to apply for a Stamp Zero, he would need have an Irish CPA audit to verify that he had enough liquid assets (he did not) and prove he had health insurance, no criminal record, etc. he would only be approved for 1/2 to 1 year at a time and he would need to apply each time it expired and pay €300 each time. There would be NO guarantee of receiving the Stamp, even if he owned land. He would never in in a million years get a license to own a gun, he is not a citizen or on a long term visa.(Don’t believe it? Check out the An Garda Síochána Immigration Bureau)Stories must be grounded in fact in order to make them believable, this one is not.Just poor research, poor character development and a far fetched story.

I too have read every Tana French novel and have been captivated by each one until The Searcher; had this been the first French novel I ever read, I would never have purchased/read a second one. For me, her previous characters have been very real individuals and I have been spellbound by the plot, but the people in The Searcher are bland, homogenous and the plot is dull and disjointed. I kept wondering, why am I reading this? Why did I even buy this? Fortunately one of my friends was going to purchase the book, and I am happy to give this one away; I have kept all of my copies of French’s other books and although I do occasionally loan a book, I would never give them away.

I’m on the road, so have to be very short and sweet with this review. But, due to the language, I simply can’t wait to warn readers of the content.While I did enjoy the mystery, I am having great difficulty rating it positive.LANGUAGE: After about the fifth “eff-word,” I did a search. More than 100. Mind you, for me, I can get dismiss the eff words and take the story for what it is. Heck, I enjoy Stephen King and Elmore Leonard. Still, one has to wonder about the editing...CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: That is where this writer scores well. Same for description and world building.BOTTOM LINEFour stars out of five.

Usually I'm a big fan of Tana French's books but I just wasn't feeling this one. I pushed through hoping for some sort of surprise ending but there was none; in fact, there were no surprises at all. It was just a slow, and I hate to say it, but fairly boring story. I wish she'd revisit some of the Dublin Murder Squad characters, especially the early ones. Those are, by far, her best books and I'd like a check-in on Frank, Cassie, et al.

Spoilers! I figured out who done it, more or less, pretty early. Then I had to wait for Cal to put the pieces together. It seemed like a long wait.I was quite put off by sections of the book where the author put speeches into characters’ mouths against political correctness and language policing, or had them expounding boringly about morals and manners. Bad examples of telling not showing. I don’t expect to be skipping multiple pages in a book by an author as talented and experienced as French.Anyone else notice the resemblance between Trey and John Sandford’s Letty West (adopted daughter of Lucas Davenport and Weather)? Feral and fierce tomboy?This book was mind of a mess. Really not her best work.

This was a fabulous read, a real classic. I’ll read it again, like all her books..this had a different tone and a rhythm that made you want to read every word, not skip over anything. Nuances and colors this story painted made me think of To Kill a Mockingbird or Where the Red Fern Grows. I loved it and will be wowed by it for a good while. It deserves a 10. Tana French is a great writer and a poet. Looking forward to the next one.

I love Tana French. I have all her books and have read them more than once. I was very sad that I cannot love this one. The main problem is Cal. He seems like John Wayne stereotype. The book was a slog until half way through until the character Trey came through as a person. No spoilers here. The citizens of the town were pure French, wonderful. I hope she gives up on Americans and goes back to what she does best, the Irish. I wish she would go back and tell us what happened to Rob Ryan.

Of course the neat hardback front cover drew me in as usual.And when you see the ads like "mesmerising thriller," and "impossibleto put down," you just know you're on to a winner!Or....maybe not.It's a cutesy little story...ex Chicago policeman moves to Ireland for aquiet life, but a local boy goes missing....ex policeman interacts with thelocals...and searches for answers....and then...It all peters out into a right old tame affair.Even the come-uppance time never even materialises.So I look around at these rave reviews, then look at mine, and I guessI must be reading a totally different book to everyone else.Time for me to quit reviewing.

I gather that this is not the most typical of Tana French’s novels, clearly an irritant to some reviewers. It’s my first experience of the author, so I am reluctant to draw conclusions too easily. Certainly, it is a very slow-moving narrative, which means that the reader is either held by the texture of the writing and the growing human relationships or becomes impatient. On balance I feel that in most respects the novel does succeed, though I have a few reservations.The story is set in Ardnakelty a rural small town in Ireland, not that far from Dublin. Cal Hooper is an ex-detective from Chicago, who for a mixture of reasons buys a shack, last owned by Marie O’Shea some 15 years or so ago. The only active connection he now has with the States is with his daughter, Alyssa, whom he speaks to regularly on the phone. Renovating his living quarters is going to occupy him for some time ahead. However, all changes in his life when a 19-year-old, Brendan Reddy, the eldest child of Sheila Reddy goes missing. Despite his promise to himself to stay well clear of anything approaching his previous work, through the intervention of the sullen, independent and enigmatic Trey, another of the impoverished Sheila’s five children, he becomes increasingly involved in the search for the missing boy. Other characters give life to the small town, which to me often seems more like somewhere in the American South or mid-west than Ireland. A notable introduction is Cal’s closest neighbour, a self-confident, quick-witted older man around whom questions arise as the plot moves steadily forward. However, at the centre of all is the growing relationship between Cal and his visitor, Trey. This is really where the heart of the novel lies, far more than in the solution to the mystery of Brendan’s whereabouts.It is an atmospheric novel, which needs the leisurely pacing to allow time for the people and place to draw in the reader. There are some striking incidents in advance of the climax, but rather like the very different Lord of the Rings, there are long waits between them. I hope to explore other of Tana French’s writing in the near future.

Don't waste your money on this book! It is extremely slow in the first half. I really struggled to keep going. Very boring and so very slow. This is by far the worst book Tans French has written. A complete yawn fest.

Tana French is a talented writer. Plenty of atmospheric descriptions of the Irish countryside, the characters who reside there and know each other’s business. She sets a great scene at the opening of the book. Unfortunately the plot lacks the tension and suspense to carry us through nearly 400 pages. Mainly because we don’t care enough about the character who goes missing.

My goodness, well over 300 page in before any proper thrills and suspense happen! It took an awful long time for this tale to reach its one and only set-piece of dramatic tension. The protagonist, Cal Hooper entrusts himself into the care of a conspirator involved in a local murder to guide him up into the boggy wilderness and to the remains of a very recent Tollund bog man. With all the loose ends of the plot already tied , at this point, by French, it might be thought this unfolds as the epilogue rather than the climax.My test for knowing if I have read an excellent piece of fiction is to ask myself whether its world lingers in the imagination, like some after image when you shut your eyes to a strong light. It is the difference between an impeccably written work(which Tana French has surely produced ) and one that has had some magic imparted within it. By that standard, The Searcher got near, but did not quite succeed.Many of the preceding pages had been spent building the relationships between characters and drawing their psychological hinterlands, in Cal Hooper's case, one of disillusionment and flight both from a career as a cop on the mean streets of Chicago, and from an unsalvageable marriage. I found it was hard work, I have to admit, and struggled to find myself caring enough about Cal or the youth, Trey, who will be the cause of Cal's reluctant return to crime solving in his adoptive home town of Ardnakelty.Another slight disappointment was that the tale was built around an Irish version of a county lines trafficking operation, in which Hooper is entangled when Trey's brother Brendan, a gobby teenager with a precocious knowledge of chemistry (hat tip to Netflix's Breaking Bad?) upsets a Dublin gang. This was a modest plot, when you consider the palette available to paint scenes of suspense and darkness in a secretive, rural mountain community . This was no Wicker Man or Deliverance.However, the writing style was engaging and the characters believable, so, on balance, a mom entertaining read!