Why can’t detectives ever retire in peace?
I picked up this book by Tana French because the sequel, The Hunter, is on everyone’s list of best books of 2024, so I thought I’d check out the prequel.
It’s good, but it’s not really my thing, and I keep trying to figure out why it’s not my thing. I like a good murder mystery every now and then, but I think my issue with this one is it was too much of a slow burn for my taste. I’d like to get to the action faster, please.
Cal Hooper grew up in North Carolina, worked as a cop in Chicago for 30 years, and has recently relocated to a tiny town in the middle of the Irish countryside. His wife divorced him and his daughter moved to Seattle, so there’s nothing keeping him in Chicago, although he does still call his daughter every week. He decides to get away from it all by buying a small, abandoned farmhouse in Nowheresville, Ireland. Come to think of it, I don’t think the town he currently lives in is ever named. That’s how small it is.
There’s one bar two miles away, and his neighbor, Martin, is close enough to provide backup if something happens at Cal’s place, but it’s not like he’s just a fencepost away.
The house had been abandoned for years before Cal bought it, so he’s in the process of fixing it up himself, partly to make it habitable, but also as a project to keep him busy. He’s retired, but he’s not old enough to sit in a rocking chair on his porch all day.
Working as a cop for three decades gave him a kind of sixth sense for when he’s being watched, and it doesn’t take long before he senses another presence around his house. He lays down some soft dirt around the perimeter of his house so he can check his theory, and sure enough, footprints show up. Just one set of footprints, so it’s not like there’s a gang getting ready to jump him or anything. But he still doesn’t know who’s watching him or what they want.
His stalker turns out to be a teenager of few words named Tray. Cal figures if the kid is going to stick around, he might as well be useful, so he starts giving Tray tasks and teaching him how to sand down wood, apply paint, etc.
After a while, Tray reveals the real reason he started hanging around Cal’s place: his brother went missing months ago and he wants Cal’s help finding him.
He refuses to believe his brother would have taken off without saying anything, but the police refuse to even look into it. Despite the fact that Cal doesn’t want to throw around the fact that he’s a retired cop, it seems to be a well-known fact that he’s a retired cop, so Tray figures he can help.
Cal tries to explain that cops don’t have any magical abilities to help them track people down. They have tools, technology, and connections that Cal, as a retired cop and an immigrant, doesn’t have access to.
But Tray doesn’t take no for an answer, and after a few minutes spent speaking with a local cop, it becomes clear that they, in fact, don’t give a shit about Tray’s family because they’re from the “wrong side of the tracks.” So, Cal agrees to help, despite his limited resources.
At the same time, some local sheep are getting mutilated and there are discussions over drinks about what could be causing it. Some people insist it must be a big, wild cat, like a cougar, even though they don’t have those in Ireland.
Other people say it must be aliens.
Cal tries to stay out of the discussion, although that gets harder as it becomes clear that the animal mutilations and the disappearance of Tray’s brother are linked.
And not all of Cal’s neighbors are as neighborly as they would like to appear…