I m the least fanciful guy around, but on nights when I wonder whether there was any point to my day, I think about this The first thing we ever did, when we started turning into humans, was draw a line across the cave door and say wild stays out What I do is what the first men did They built walls to keep back the sea They fought the wolves for the hearth fire there is no better quote to encapsulate this book because wild doesn t always want to stay out, and tana french keeps finding the cracks [...]

I miss Rob and Cassie Wish she d get back to their story

Tana French could write an obituary and I would read it I would, in fact, hunt down the newspaper just so that I could read it Ms French s books are the sum of almost everything I love in fiction flawed characters, seriously messed up pasts, conflicting moral questions, interesting settings and subtle social commentary I believe French s writing could be easily categorized as mystery or thriller, but I think putting French s books in those boxes is misleading and doesn t do her books the justice [...]

Next time I pick up a Tana French book, someone beat me please The spark that animated the first two books, and compensated for their structural weaknesses, has turned sour This book just drags While the premise that Ireland s recession and housing crash can literally drive you crazy or kill you was intiriguing, the book was just bloated and in need of a good editor The plot bogs down for about 300 pages in the middle I was so bored that I convinced myself into thinking the end would be an actio [...]

This may be my favorite of Tana French s novels, just barely overtaking In the Woods, and I loved it immensely At its heart, it s a book about the terror of madness, the dreams gone awry, the slow spiral that gets you to your breaking point, and the sad pathos of desperately grasping at the straws that tether you to the world of familiar safety of normalcy.The setting of this novel scares me in the way it s grounded in reality This is no longer Ireland of In the Woods, Celtic Tiger rushing onto [...]

Tana French delivers again.Murder detective Mick Scorcher Kennedy is on a high profile case located in what was formerly known as Broken Harbour, now Brianstown, where his family used to vacation He has a rookie, Richie, under his wing but it is Mick who tells us this story.Brianstown is a relatively new community development that promised would be residents an idyllic seaside community, a safe place to raise your family, build a life, pursue your dreams, then the economy plummeted leaving Brian [...]

After playing a minor role in Faithful Place, Mike Scorcher Kennedy is able to steal the spotlight and prove readers why he is the Squad s star detective Assigned to work with, Kennedy picks up a brutal assault murder over in Brianstown, colloquially known as Broken Harbour In Broken Harbour, Tana French s 4th novel in her Dublin Murder Squad Series, Mike Scorcher Kennedy, who played a minor role in the previous book, Faithful Place, book show 7 has been assigned a new partner, rookie Detective [...]

Broken Harbour is yet another gripping psychological mystery from one of my favourite authors I love how Ms French can always be relied on to deliver something brilliant that is far about people and their mentalities than it is about simply solving cases She has a real talent for creating personalities that seem to jump off the page and Scorcher Kennedy is no exception.Though all her novels offer an in depth exploration of the human mind, I think Broken Harbour is perhaps the one that best expl [...]

In a lonely development on the Irish Sea, two children and their father are dead and the mother is on death s door Who killed them That s what Scorcher Kennedy and his new partner, Richie, mean to find out Will what they find destroy them Broken Harbour is the story of one man s obsession with order and a family s gradual descent into chaos When Pat Spain gets downsized, things start falling apart for the Spain family but was it enough for Pat to kill his family and himself Scorcher Kennedy is a [...]

The devil is in the details.To me, the 100% spectrum of life is divided up between two tiny slivers of white and black, the great mass of the 99.999% between is a wall of grey, lighter at one end and darker at the other, but grey For some people, this is heresy or foolishness, life is divided evenly between white and black order and chaos, good and bad, us and them When I was on active duty in the US Army, there was a sergeant who loved to argue with me He was a black and white guy, rules and or [...]

There are certain things I pride myself on the ability to read through a tremendous racket without losing my thread of concentration, the audacity to share my blasphemous distaste for pizzas with pizza worshippers who then proceed to shoot me death glares, and pertinently, the way I don t balk at rating a piece of mainstream literature 5 stars if it has shown the grit to discard gimmickry and preserve that golden human touch How ingeniously Tana French subverts the formulaic plotting of a psych [...]

At first glance, Ocean View looked pretty tasty big detached houses that gave you something substantial for your money, trim strips of green, quaint signposts Second glance, the grass needed weeding and there were gaps in the footpaths Third glance, something was wrong The village of the damned Every master of horror knows that true fear does not originate from a basement, fear crawls up through your spine through the emptiness of a vast, vacant room Fear comes from isolation, and isolation happ [...]

Tana French continues to amaze with her fourth stunning Dublin Murder Squad novel, proving that binge reading this series was a wonderful February treat After playing a minor role in Faithful Place, Mike Scorcher Kennedy is able to steal the spotlight and prove readers why he is the Squad s star detective Assigned to work with rookie Detective Richie Curran, Kennedy picks up a brutal assault murder over in Brianstown, colloquially known as Broken Harbour When they arrive, the detectives discover [...]

This probably seems like too few stars for a book so compelling, it s still haunting me two days later and making me think I m hearing bumps in the night But the denouement of the book was too absurd to hold up, and having Jenny be the murderer with such a thinly constructed rationale just didn t work for me.Broken Harbor has gotten raves from professional critics for elevating the detective procedural to a level of social commentary, in this case about the personal destruction wrought by the ec [...]

I ve been an avid fan of Tana French since her chilling debut novel, In the Woods, a poetically written murder mystery that combined police procedural with psychological thriller She writes evocatively about solitary adults afflicted by damaged childhoods Her novels go beyond the murder cases and weave layered tales about memories, the search for identity, the healing of broken families, and the social and economic issues of contemporary Ireland Broken Harbor will satisfy old enthusiasts and hoo [...]

Tana French is responsible for some of the most all consuming, vivid characters I ve ever experienced Reading her books, for me, is often like becoming a different person for a little while She doesn t just write characters she seems to channel them More than just about any other writer s, her characters are like real people to me and these are not simple, happy people These people have pasts They have layers and layers of coping mechanisms and justifications and habits that shield them from tho [...]

3.5 starsNetterooski s Top Five Suggestions For Alternate Titles The Critter In the CrawlspaceA Rodent In the RaftersThe Monitor MurdersPaddy s Pretend Pet Video VerminIf you ve read the book, the above needs no explanation If you haven t yet read it, prepare yourself for obsessive coverage of animal behavior.

I m going to do two things I almost never do.First, I ll tell you how to read Sit down and pay attention to this book Read in large, uninterrupted blocks of time Trust me you will better be able to appreciate French s character evolution or dissolution and the many layers of the plot become all the shocking when they ve had the chance to properly build.The second thing I rarely do spoiler part of my review For my memory and discussion s sake, I must be specific Once again, French impresses This [...]

I crave family Not my own poor, battered and scarred little nuclear one that raised me, the one that s settled into a comfortable but rather arms length tapdance that I can t quite figure out how to consciously approach with the same depth of instinctive draw that wells up in emergencies I crave the idea of that eff word, the individuals who rely on each other for supportive encouragement and the liberty to deliver buttkicking reality checks, who don t question a welcome, who will listen to and [...]

As seen on The Readventurer double feature with Catie After than 6 months filled with disappointments that came like blows from my favorite authors Bitterblue, Holier Than Thou, Gone Girl, The Calling , I thought I couldn t count on any of my precious to deliver the goods Apparently, I can still rely on Tana French to keep up her standards Broken Harbor is not maybe my favorite novel of hers I think Faithful Place is , but definitely not weaker than any of her previous works.All her books are p [...]

Another great thriller from Tana French Broken Harbor is the fourth book in French s Dublin Murder Squad series, and it follows Mick Scorcher Kennedy and his rookie partner, Richie, who are trying to solve the murders of a father and his two children The mother survived the attack, but doesn t remember much Besides working on the case, Scorcher is also trying to deal with his mentally ill sister who keeps causing trouble One of the things I especially liked about Broken Harbor was Scorcher s ong [...]

Much better than the third book in the series, and some great buildup, as always, but UGH, Tana French needs to learn to stick the landing I m still frustrated over the ending of the first book, and only the second has had an ending deserving of the previous x pages With this one, unrealistic character choices makes for an ending that doesn t quite make any sense, and certainly doesn t match the journey we took to get there But, it was better than the third book Now can we PLEASE find out what h [...]

This is another excellent psychological crime novel from Tana French In this case the book features another member of the Dublin Murder Squad, Mick Scorcher Kennedy, who first appeared in a minor role in French s last book, Faithful Place.Kennedy has the best solve rate on the squad He s the star, and thus when a particularly brutal homicide occurs, Mick is assigned to the case He s also teamed with a new young partner, Richie Curran, and, in addition to catching a killer, he s expected to show [...]

It almost took me a month to read this book It s good and really written well and I wanted to read it all but life happens Mikey Kennedy our murder squad man is facing a murdered family A father, a son, and a daughter and the mother is critically injured A classic Murder mystery in the time of a recession, where the past and present meet in an Irish estate being developed for the rich, yet no one is there and it feels like a ghost town You can taste the salt in the air Hear the gulls And hear th [...]

When we can t see a pattern, we fit the pieces together until one takes shape, because we have to.The previous title in this series, Faithful Place, was one of my favorite books ever, so I was hesitant reading the rest of the series, as I was almost certain that I would be disappointed No need to worry though, Tana French did it again I loved everything about this book the beautiful writing, the very eerie setting, the relationships and the amazing twist I never saw coming Ireland is than just [...]

Damn, we re not gonna hear about Richie ever again, are we I should have known, after ROB It seems that my fave male leads are disappearing into thin air when Tana French is concerned ANYWAY.Sure, I couldn t stand what came from Scorcher s mind mouth 99% of the time, but was I supposed to I DON T THINK SO Between the chilling atmosphere, the gorgeous writing and the depth of the characters dynamics, I had so much to love all the same.For of my reviews, please visit

Wow I don t even know where to begin Broken Harbor feels like it has left me broken.The story begins with Scorcher investigating a murder with a newbie Richie The murder case is of a family Father and 2 kids a girl and a boy murdered and the mother brutally injured The murder scene and method is described in detail and gave me the chills Apart from this the start of the book is slow till around 30% of the book it just goes in circles and nothing much really happens apart from establishing the wo [...]

I m going to have to try to write up a review later I cannot believe I have been so gutted by a psychological thriller Poor Kennedy Poor Richie Poor Jenny Man This is the review that made me really sure I wanted to read it nytimes 2012 07 19 boo ETA Oh here, have a tl dr comment since apparently I can t write reviews any, WARNING it is full of spoilers Giant crashing spoilers that will make you want to go out and buy one of those old cartoon style traps, yes.I was thinking of this by the end The [...]

Patrick and Jenny Spain and their two young children Emma and Jack living in an unfinished, decaying housing development in Brianstown formerly Broken Harbor Ireland are attacked Patrick and the children are dead and Jenny is barely alive Mike Scorcher Kennedy and his rookie partner Richie Curran are assigned the case.As usual with Tana French s books one of the detectives in this case Scorcher Kennedy has an unfortunate history with the murder locale When Scorcher was a child his family spent s [...]

The fourth novel by Tana French and 4 in a series narrated by a detective of or working with the Murder Squad in Dublin would ve been a convenient spot for the bestselling author to go on auto pilot and take a coffee break She s earned it, writing three phenomenal novels in steady succession Published in 2012, there are major challenges with this one, not only to spin another intoxicating murder mystery, but do so with main characters who seem to be running for Prick of the Year honors In spite [...]