Toby is living a good life in Dublin. He has a great job, beautiful girlfriend his own apartment and a close loving family. One night whilst in bed he hears noises in the apartment. Toby gets up to investigate and is brutally attacked, he has injuries to his head and spends time in hospital. He is frightened to return to his apartment alone, or to endanger his girlfriend so they both move into the family’s old large home, The Ivy House. Toby and his many relatives have spent many happy summers here. One afternoon one of his nephews finds a skull inside the old wych elm in the back of the garden. The police are called and during the investigation Toby and his close cousins have to remember all the events of that summer. Things may not have been as he and the family remembered them. A gripping story, very well written.

The Wych Elm tells the story of Toby who after a horrific attack goes to live with his dying uncle as part of his recuperation.

At His uncles house, “the Ivy House” he reminisces about childhood summers and time spent with friends and family until a skull is discovered in the garden.

This book was not at all like I was expecting, rather than a standard crime story told from the perspective of the police piecing together the mystery in this book we rely on Toby. The impact of the attack on his memory has him questioning himself and the reader questioning what he cannot remember.

I enjoyed this book and will look out for others from this author.

I missed a few books in this series, but that didn't stop me from following this book. it can easily be read as a stand-alone. Another great book by Tana French.

Tana French writes a densely compelling and complicated character driven psychological drama that is a slow burner, set in Dublin. Toby Hennessy is a privileged young man, an only child, secure and confident, living a charmed life with the luck of the Irish, and an inherent ability to talk himself out of dicey scenarios with ease. After a night out with long term friends, Sean and Dec, Toby makes his way home, and wakes up to find two men burgling his flat who leave him for dead, shattering his life and sense of identity. He manages to survive, left with physical damage,never ending pain, difficulties with memories and severe mental health issues He is sucked into a black vortex of fear, unable to socialise or go out, reliant on medication and Xanax, teetering on the edge of sanity with no hope of returning to work in PR at the art gallery. His uncle Hugo lives in the ancestral family home, Ivy House, a place that Toby spent childhood summers at with his cousins, Susanna and Leon, a golden time of good times, fun and joy.

Hugo, a genealogist, has brain cancer, and not expected to live long. Toby is persuaded to move in to Ivy House to help look after him and keep an eye on him as Hugo's health deteriorates. His loyal and loving girlfriend, Melissa, moves in too, proving to be an invaluable source of help to both Hugo and Toby. The discovery of a skull in the Wych Elm in the garden changes everything, with intense media scrutiny and a police investigation led by Detective Rafferty. Rafferty's investigation proves to a stressful affair for the entire family as their lives are picked apart, the police are insidious and not above engaging in machinations that they hope will throw light on a murderer. Toby's memories are elusive and unreliable ever since the nightmare of being attacked, and does he know Susanna and Leon as well as he thinks he does? As family secrets begin to slowly tumble out, it becomes increasingly clear that Toby is not the person he thought he was, and his memories of the past are unreliable at best, as he finds himself in places he never dreamed he would be in.

French writes a beautifully plotted psychological drama that slips into the interior life of Toby with skill and depth, a subtle examination of what it is to be a young man, acting without thought as a teenager, unaware of the wider consequences of his actions. The portrayal of a man having his life derailed on a number of fronts, by the horror of being attacked in his own home, by his shaky perceptions and memories of the past, and whose picture of himself as a good guy may not be all that there is to him. The stresses on his mental health as he investigates personal and family history put his relationship with Melissa under threat as the future he once envisaged begins to sink without trace. This is a brilliant read for those who like character driven novels that move at a slow pace, all the better for the opportunities it offered for a greater multilayered and understanding of Toby in all his complexities, his connections with others and the nature of family dynamics through time. Many thanks to Penguin UK for an ARC.

MY REVIEW


Toby is one of those lucky people, he always lands on his feet no matter what scrapes he gets into. However, this is about to change, he knew an artist was bogus but didn’t tell his boss.......he got found out, his home is broken into and he is beaten so badly he ends up in hospital in a bad way.


Toby is then questioned about the robbery, and feels he is treated as the perpetrator and not the victim. Then he hears that his uncle has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

So to come to terms with his new situation and to help in the care of his uncle, Toby moves back to the family home, with his girlfriend. A couple of his cousins are also there and they find a skull in the garden, and this is where Toby’ luck goes from bad to worse.


This is not a fast paced tale and it details Toby’s trauma, physical and psychological, in a sympathetic and realistic way, but I didn’t really like him, I felt this was intentional so you just don’t know who to trust....compelling writing and very clever. Just shows how reaching our actions can be to our lives and those of others, and the consequences of such.




I would like to thank the Author/the Publishers/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review

A very intense narrative that twists and turns but is completely compelling. An unreliable narrator but intentionally or unintentionally? It is a long book and I confess to moments of impatience but it is finely crafted, unique and well worth the effort. Comparisons to the secret history do stand up in ways for me.

I am afraid this book was not a favourite of Tana French's. Main reason is it's too long for what it's telling.
If it was much shorter, maybe it'd be an interesting one.
The very opening was gripping, but it slowed down shortly and for a long time nothing happened but dialogues. It's not my type of thriller, I'm afraid. The characters didn't grab my attention too, I didn't root for any one if them.

So, if you like books with lots of dialogue, same thing told with different perspectives, slow going mysteries, maybe you'll like it better.

Thanks a lot to Netgalley and the publisher for this complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am definitely not a fan of this book. It's so wordy. I like the books that tell something with less words, but the dialogue and storytelling in this book made me pull my own hair.

First of all, really nothing related to the main story happens for up until 35-40% of the book. I have no idea why the intro was so long. Maybe I am missing something, but to me it looked like a problem with the structure of the book.

Starts with Toby's life, friends / work etc. then It branched out to Toby being attacked,moving in with dying uncle, their relationship developed, at this point I've wondered if something ever going to happen as it was so slow, Toby's cousins having casual chit chat around sunday roast for pages, or listening something in two different dialogue overwhelmed me. Then wham! the skull is found, then again, pages and pages long events, it could have been much shorter. Literally, after 50% percent, If you ffw the book to 90% and read only the last 10% you'll get it.

I think my main problem was the story not opening up forever, and then the characters being really uninteresting. I'm probably not going to pick up another French book as I wasn't crazy about In the Woods as well, but if you like wordy,lengthy books with a lot of dialogue, give it a go.

An okay read but just wasn't for me and I couldn't finish it. It was just boring to me because I didn't truly like any of the characters and thought the plot was very basic.

Tana French excels at setting a mystery involving young adults, that has you completely flummoxed as who dunnit, how they did it and why. By the end of the book you have sashayed through all the suspects but still need to be led the real culprit. Well written with good character development and a few twists that keep you interested until the very last page

This was a really intriguing book and I found it really interesting that the author focused on the psychological damage that Toby suffered after his attack. I haven’t read many books that focus on this aspect and she detailed his suffering in such detail I really felt for Toby and what he was experiencing. There are times though when Toby is portrayed as being over-privileged, verging on spoilt, having spent his entire life relying on luck to get by so I found myself with really conflicting emotions towards him.

This is a very long book with long chapters, and for me personally I felt it was a bit too long for the story it was telling. At times I felt like I was just reading and waiting for something to happen to re-engage me with the story. Having said that though, the entire way through the story there is a quiet, simmering, underlying tension which did keep me motivated to finish and find out just what would happen to Toby’s character.

I would suggest you need to invest some time to read this book, it’s not a ‘light’ read and not one I personally would say can be read in short chunks at a time. To get the most of it you really need to delve within the pages and get engrossed with Toby’s mindset.

I really struggled with this read. The lead character of Toby, a happy go lucky young man, I found irritating and self obsessed. He disturbs burglars and is then beaten so badly that he is seriously injured and hospitalised. I began to feel sympathy for Toby, but, it was just soooo slow. We then learn that he goes to his Uncle's house 'The Ivy House' to recuperate and where a skull is discovered in the base of a tree.
There then follows a meandering tale of murder, secrets and lies and I'm afraid I just didn't care enough.

I so wanted to enjoy this and am grateful to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview. For diehard Tana French fans, who don't mind the slow pace, you'll possibly like and I hope you do. Not for me.

It’s rare that I give a book 5* but the latest offering from tana French is so astonishingly good that it more than deserves them.

This book is a heavyweight, taut with tension, and is lacking in absolutely no department. The characters are so well formed that they practically jump off the page and the story is clever, informed and multi faceted.

When I first started the book after an hour or so I had to go back and read the blurb as I was convinced that I was reading a crime thriller but the words on the page didn’t seem to relate. The story begins with a getting to know you type preamble, all craic and drugs (penned so realistically that the author must have indulged at some point historically!) and not a whiff of violence or darkness or wych elms, until the main character is brutally attacked in his own home.

This leaves him with a brain injury which distorts his thinking processes and, encouraged by his cousin, he moves back into their childhood family home ostensibly to care from a terminally ill uncle but also to try and get himself together.

From this point the story changes into a dark delicious murder mystery, which entwines the house, it’s residents and the wider family. The protagonists brain injury gives the book a slightly smeary feel, as though you are really there trying to work out what’s going on through a dirty pane of glass. It’s testament to the author that she is able to transport the reader in this way. Brilliant brilliant writing.

In conclusion, I do not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone and everyone. It’s intelligent, cool, superbly well written, and very poised. 5*****

I was so excited to read this book after seeing so many people rave about it online. I'll put my hands up and say I'e not read any books by Tana French before but her reputation precedes her, and I was won over by the title, the cover and the blurb - which all delivered a delicious sense of foreboding.
The book opens with the central character, Toby - a fairly privileged young man with everything to look forward to. He has a great job, a loving relationship, a fabulous apartment and the dream of building the perfect life for him and his family.
Then it all goes wrong for Toby, when he suffers catastrophic brain injures during a burglary. This is all wonderfully, compellingly, beautifully written.... but.... after 150 pages the reader will find themselves no closer to the central crux of the novel and the discovery of something grim in the old family home, or more specifically the old Wych Elm in the garden.
And that is my main problem with this novel. The story is great (if a little implausible at times), the writing is exquisite. I had a huge sense of the Ivy House, of wonderful uncle Hugo, of Toby and his life and his struggles, of Melissa, of all the extended family, of the police officers... They were all described and revealed to us in such detail that you couldn't help but know them all intimately.
But, for me, it slowed the pace of this book to such an extent that I ended up desperate for a development, some movement, some revelation.
There is a LOT of dialogue in this book. Long drawn out conversations over pages and pages that are, at times, repetitious and I did end up skim reading.
The ending of the book is very satisfying in itself but I would have liked to see some consequences for one or two of the characters who seemed to get away scot free despite their almost machiavellian behaviour.

I cannot fault the quality of the writing in this book, but for me the pacing really detracted from my enjoyment of the book. On a few occasions I almost put it aside - but I suppose it did keep pulling me back in.
A reluctant three stars, and I'm sure that will do no harm at all to Tana French's reputation or ongoing success.

This was an incredible book. Firstly it was wonderful to find a book written as a male in the first person. The fiction world is full of so called psychological thrillers with a female lead character who makes bad decisions all the way through, is quite dizzy or is being manipulated, and then wonders why everything is going wrong in her life. So Toby, whom the book is about, was a welcome surprise. This was a long book but then there was no part of it that could have been left out, possibly some of the late night conversations that Toby had with his cousins, but then you learnt a lot of necessary facts from those episodes.. The story line was very original and all the characters extremely believable, I could see each of them saying the dialogue whether it was Toby, Hugo or Miranda. The atmosphere of the Ivy House came across brilliantly, you could feel the dark, rather dilapidated atmosphere of every room. I had hoped for a happier ending for Toby, he went from heaven to hell in the space of a few weeks. I would highly recommend this book and this author, once you start to read chapter one you won't be able to put it down, it's one of those, just one more chapter, reads but very well deserved.

My first book by this author and I really enjoyed it. I haven't read many books recently that were over 500 pages long, but didn't find this tedious in the least; there was capacity to explore the characters in depth and the chain of events that wove together to reach the present day position.

I read a lot of crime thrillers but am hesitant to describe this as such, feels like selling it short. The heart rending challenges of watching a loved one succumb to cancer will hit home for many readers and it is sensitively dealt with but in an honest way. The exploration of human shortcomings and character flaws had me sympathising with then loathing Toby and others at the turn of a page, testament to the quality of the writing.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked how everything came together piece by piece and that I felt I knew the characters. Ireland will always be a magical setting. I could visualise the house and its surroundings. I visualise Hugo and his way of life. My only gripe is that I felt the book was a bit too long. I think I would have found it more enjoyable if it had been a bit shorter.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Another excellent read from the queen of suspense :) I loved this stand alone that kept me in the edge of my seat :)
10/10

There were elements of this book that I liked, but overall it wasn’t for me. I found it very slow moving. There was a huge amount of back story and the main plot didn’t really get going until about 150 pages in. I didn’t really engage with the story at the centre of the book or any of the characters, and there was such a lot of additional information (possibly intended to make the mystery more mysterious) that I found the plot a bit unwieldy. There were some good scenes, but overall it didn’t grip me.

I am a Tana French fan and have enjoyed all of her books. Though this was very different to Dublin Murder Squad. her writing is just so bloody good. The characters are well developed and from the mundane to the eccentric they evoke a personal response. In some ways the plot seems simple but it ultimately uncovers layers of past history and personal discovery. Maybe it could be shorter but, for me, it was a very enjoyable read.