Kelly (and the Book Boar)'s Reviews > The Searcher

This isn’t going to have a happy ending.

There’s nothing quite like that feeling when you finish a book and think “now what the eff am I going to read after THAT?!?!?!?!” Man, bookhangovers – they are a rarity for me, but last night when I finished up The Searcher that’s exactly how I felt. I had only read (and enjoyed) Tana French once before, but my real life bookpal recommended this one . . . . with trepidation . . . . so I immediately downloaded it from the library. (I ride or die with my book besties because they don’t ever tend to steer me wrong.) I understand her hesitation on telling me about this one, though, because not only is it 450+ pages and she’s well aware I’m a dumb dumb baby who likes my stories wrapped up in about 100 pages less than that, but also because this one is a slow roller. But I’m telling you it was a slow roller in the best possible way for me. The story absorbed me like fog rolling across the backyard on my favorite types of quiet Saturday mornings out on the deck with my cup of Joe. I loved Cal instantly and grew to love him even more as the “why” behind how he had wound up in Ireland after retiring from the police force back in the States was explained. And I love a kid in a book about once a year, so kudos to you little Trey – you done good at making me fall in love with you as well. The mystery here doesn’t even get mentioned until nearly the 100 page mark, so I’m not kidding when I say you need to be patient and just let yourself be sucked in by the atmosphere for a bit. Not to mention, it’s not the most mysterious of mysteries. You KNOW things ain’t gonna end up great, you just have to keep reading for the details.

I vaguely remember this being a bit of a miss when it was released, but again I’m not a Tana French reader historically so I was not trying to compare apples to apples. If I were to compare this to anyone, it would be David Joy – and that’s about the finest compliment I can give an author so it’s getting all the Stars.



Oh, and if you’re wondering what I decided to pick up next I pretty much spun the wheel on my NetGalley backlog and ended up with Best Men. It’s completely different from this, but Max is already charming me.