Cal is a complex enough character, though, and it turns out that the mystery he’s trying to solve is less shocking than what he ultimately discovers. Cal is a new arrival to an insular community, and he’s about to discover that he didn’t leave crime and violence behind when he left the big city. French is deploying a well-worn trope here-in fact, she’s deploying a few. Trey wants the police detective who just emigrated from America to find out what’s really happened to Brendan. Everyone believes that Brendan has run off just like his father did, but Trey thinks there’s more to the story than just another young man leaving his family behind in search of money and excitement in the city. His daughter is grown, his wife has left him, so Cal is on his own-until a kid named Trey starts hanging around. A small town in a small country”: That’s what he’s searching for when he moves to the West of Ireland. Originally from North Carolina, Cal Hooper has spent the last 30 years in Chicago. It's a good mystery for people who read for the writing and don't mind the plot being slow.A retired cop takes one last case in this stand-alone novel from the creator of the Dublin Murder Squad. But the writing is a pleasure to read and the characters are varied and keep the book interesting. However the pace of this book is slow, the story really beginning after 100 pages and the plot unfolding mostly in the last quarter of the book. The book is named after a 1956 movie “The Searchers” and like the film, this book is essentially a Western set in West Ireland rather than the American West. As Cal investigates, he realises the admirable aspects of a small town he moved to Ardnakelty for, have a dark side. The locals, including the local law enforcement, don't seem eager to pursue this case and Trey is convinced something bad has happened to his brother.

Soon Trey reveals that his real motive was to ask for Cal's help in finding his missing brother. He sets to restoring the cottage and befriends a boy called Trey who seems to want to learn some carpentry. Cal moves into a cottage, eager to leave his old life and job behind. It's mentality, the way that the people have friendships and enmities that go back generations and the way they respond to Cal's moving in all show a personality in itself. Though we follow a retired cop from Chicago called Cal Hooper, the true protagonist of the tale is the small town.

'The Searcher' is not a part of the Dublin Murder Squad series and is a standalone, set in Ardnakelty, a fictional small town. The latest Irish mystery by Tana French, ' The Searcher', is a character-driven slow burner.

The searchers tana french