A short review
Penguin UK| 7 March 2024| 409 pages| E-book review copy| 4*
Synopsis
It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in the village. They’re coming for gold. What they bring is trouble.
Cal Hooper was a Chicago detective, till he moved to the West of Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less – in his relationship with local woman Lena, and the bond he’s formed with half-wild teenager Trey. So when two men turn up with a money-making scheme to find gold in the townland, Cal gets ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey. Because one of the men is no stranger: he’s Trey’s father.
But Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.
Crackling with tension and slow-burn suspense, The Hunter explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide, from the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller Tana French
I’ve loved several books by Tana French, especially The Searcher, the first Cal Hooper mystery, so I was really looking forward to reading the second, The Hunter. I wasn’t disappointed and enjoyed this one almost as much. Like The Searcher this is a slow-burner, a book to savour, not one to rush through.
Two years have gone by since the events told in The Searcher. Ex-Chicago detective Cal Hooper is now settled in Ardnakelty, a remote Irish village and Trey Reddy is now fifteen. Trey’s father, Johnny who has been absent from the village for four years suddenly returns. But Trey is suspicious of her father’s true motives and doesn’t trust him, or the rich Londoner, Cillian Rushborough, Johnny met in London. The two of them are out to fleece the villagers, claiming there is gold on their land. But just who is scamming who?
I liked the slow build up to the mystery – there is a murder, but the body is only discovered later on in in the book. And it is the characters not the murder that are the focal point. I loved Tana French’s beautiful descriptions of the Irish rural landscape. It’s the sort of book I find so easy to read and lose myself in, able to visualise the landscape and feel as if I’m actually there with the characters, watching what is happening.
Many thanks to Penguin for a review copy via NetGalley.