This was my first book my Tana French and overall I really enjoyed it. The writing is excellent and the characters are really strong!
I won't lie, it was definitely a slow burner. It took me longer to read than most books do but in a way it allowed me to really get into it and immerse myself in the story. The writing is really beautiful and atmospheric. Being an Irish girl who lives in London, it felt so nice to be brought back to the homeland and I could so clearly picture the fields, mountains and just beautiful landscape of the country. French does an unbelievable job at drawing in the reader and making them feel like they are watching this story play out right in front of them.
The characters are also excellent. Each of them bring so much to the overall story and they felt like real people who you could bump into on the street. The bond between Cal and Trey is so nicely portrayed and French does a sensational job of drawing it out in a way that feels real and authentic. Trey is this enigmatic, mysterious and serious character that just has so much raw emotion and depth - definitely a top character for me!
The overall wit and perceptions of the Irish characters is hilarious at times. It felt a little stereotypical but to be honest, I could really picture in Sean Og's Pub and hearing and seeing these people chatting while having a pint. The only thing I'll say is that I found it hard to see Cal as American, the way the writes his speech actually came across a little Irish at times but that could be just me.
So the writing and characters are great and totally had me hooked but I won't lie, I found the ending a little disappointing. Due to the slow and evolving pace of the story, it felt like it was building up to this huge twist and reveal but it just didn't meet the mark for me unfortunately. This is the only flaw which is why I still gave it a 4. The writing is just sensational and I can't wait to read more from French.
Big thank you to Net Galley for letting me read this pre publication!

Reading a Tana French novel is very much like coming home, but there is something very special about the Searcher. It gets deep into your bones and draws you in. I have loved all of her other books, but this is my new favourite. Cal Hooper's character is just brilliant to follow, and I loved his relationship with Trey. As always, Tana's talent for capturing a scene is spectacular, and her descriptions of the Irish village is absolutely stunning. I loved every page.

I have this really strange relationship with Tana French novels. She wrote one of my favourite crime-thriller novels- In the Woods- and it was like the literary equivalent of going on the most amazing first date of your life. The kind of date where you come home afterwards and lie on your bed staring up at the ceiling for hours, enraptured.

Unfortunately just about every one of her books thereafter proved to be a massive let down. Good story telling and engaging characters in many but a glacial pace and just sooooo much talking. Talking and talking and sometimes drinking but then with more talking. I read an interview in which French herself described the book preceding this one, (The Wych Elm), as “up its own arse” and the fact she was able to recognise that perhaps explains why she seems to have made efforts to address that with The Searcher. It’s not quite the same calibre as In the Woods but it’s overall a much better paced story, with just the right amount of depth of character and plot.

Plenty of other reviews have covered the plot summary so I won’t go over it here, other than to mention I found it interesting that the protagonist, Cal, was able to retire permanently in Ireland on a police pension, to the point I started Googling “how much is a police pension worth” and “how to retire in Ireland”. Having done that research I am sure it is perfectly possible but would have been happier if French had thrown us a line to explain. Cal’s Ireland is just picture postcard perfect in so many respects, from the pleasing descriptions of the landscape, the colourful local village and the slightly eccentric neighbours. Underneath though lurks something unsavoury and it’s quickly apparent that Cal’s new home is actually far from idyllic. French’s depiction of an incomer walking the tricky balance of not meddling versus helping those in need creates just the right amount of narrative tension. The headline plot of a missing person case- and its resolution- turns out to be less interesting than I expected. But that didn’t really detract too much, especially with the rich stew of characters adding flavour to the piece. Like many of her books, there’s a bit of enjoyable supernatural element running through it, although much less so in this one.

On the whole I’d say this is a highly entertaining, enjoyable and compelling read. If not exactly the best date of your life then it’s at least the equivalent of a very pleasant dinner with some good company.

I was fortunate to receive a copy of this ARC from NetGalley.

This was a VERY slow burner! It took me a while to adjust to some of the Americanisms and also some sexist humour at the beginning. Once I got to know Cal, I found him quite endearing with a dry sense of humour.

It is quite a long book, approximately 7.5 hours as an Ebook.

My favourite quote:
"Her belief is built purely out of hope, piled on top of nothing, solid as smoke."

I loved the seasonal descriptions and nature references.

What’s it About? Retired detective Cal Hooper has moved, on his own, to a remote village in Rural Ireland. He plans to just live a quiet life, really, his policing days left behind but then a local kid appeals to him for help - they're large family on one of the kids is missing and nobody seems to care. And Cal can't leave a case unsolved...
What I liked This was such a good autumnal read. I love a good crime drama in the autumn, and in fact always, and this was one. I'm such a sucker for a retired cop drawn back to a case and I loved the setting of this one and the way it unfolded.
What I liked Less Oh I don't know, not much, I liked it a whole lot. I maybe found the climax a tiny bit underwhelming?

I really enjoyed this!
A retired cop of 25 years service finds himself caught up in not quite the sleepy Irish village he imagined retiring to but instead gets involved with a missing person quest.
The scene setting was fantastic and really enriched the story. The relationships and interaction between the characters was also great as I also really enjoyed the scenes at the local pub, with the neighbours and at the local shop etc. Even the small details like the rooks roosting in his garden genuinely felt like an extra character in the book and brought a chuckle or two along the way.
In all a real feel-good story bizarrely despite some of the context.
It's not perfect but no doubt it's 5 stars from me.

My favourite genre is psychological thrillers. I was hoping this was going to be up there with one of my favourite reads of the year but I found it very slow. The descriptive writing was wonderful and I felt transported to rural Ireland. The story however was not fast paced enough. I couldn't warm to the main character Cal at all. Trey was a fabulous character and a surprise!
Descriptive writing 10 out of 10 but not the thriller of a ride for me, sorry. I ended up skim reading just to get through it, which I rarely do with a book.

This was my first book by Tana French and I absolutely loved it. It was a very slow burner to begin with, but luckily I had the time to invest in the story, and I'm so glad that I did. Will be recommending!

Loved the book but definitely nothing like her Dublin Murders series.. Saying that it wouldnt put me off reading more by this author

Any Tana French is an automatic read, no hesitation. When I realized how much I loved her books (long after everyone else) I tried rationing them, so I didn’t use them up too quickly, and have to wait a long time for the next one. Hopeless. I got through them very quickly. The Wych Elm came out last year (I imported a copy from the US because the publication date there was earlier) and now this is another standalone ie not connected to her Dublin Murder Squad series.








It’s very different in some ways: still the Irish setting, but very much not Dublin or the nearby towns. Cal, a retired cop from Chicago, has bought a broken-down house and some land in a small village, Ardnakelty, a remote spot somewhere in the centre of Ireland. He is slowly doing up his house and getting to know the locals. He gets a feel for something going on locally, but is keeping clear. Then a teenage boy starts turning up at the edge of his property. Eventually Trey starts helping with the renovations, and asks Cal to help find his brother Brendan, who disappeared a while back. Trey’s family is seen as very rough locally, nobody is taking the lost boy seriously. Cal starts asking questions, knowing this is likely to cause trouble. There is already something going on: dead sheep.






It's a mesmerising book about rural life: the ups and downs, the sense of community and the lack of privacy, the casual attitude towards law and order, the poverty and hard lives of those at the bottom of the pile. The problems for young people, running out of possibilities in this area. But also the fun, the evenings in the pub, the music and the chat. French always has the best ear for conversations: ones that may mean something and ones that don’t. She describes a hard evening’s drinking almost in real time and you feel you lived through it with them. She creates wonderful characters – so vivid and rounded – and the whole world of the village is totally convincing, down to the gossip passed on by the local shopkeeper.






I very slightly missed the life of Dublin from the other groups, I like a city story, and also the gangs of young people she does so well, the chitchat and social media (to my mind her young-people’s-lives are at least the equal of Sally Rooney and Normal People), the class consciousness and the attempts at romance. This was a smaller setting in terms of the number of characters – although the landscape was not small-scale. But I have no arguments: I will still read whatever she writes.






I really wanted more of Caroline, a young woman who only appears in one short scene. I loved her suggestions for a present for a 6 year old girl:

‘No problem,’ Caroline says cheerfully. She heads behind the counter, picking things off racks and shelves on her way: a gauzy green fairy doll, a shamrock T-shirt, a silver necklace in a little green box, a fuzzy black-faced toy sheep. ‘If she likes fairies she’d love this. Or if she’s more sporty maybe a top and baseball cap?... Or you can’t go wrong with a claddagh necklace. It’s the traditional Irish symbol for love, friendship and loyalty.’

The 6 yo is imaginary, it’s an excuse to talk: the shop is tourist gift tat, and the job is part-time for a student. French doesn’t need to make the list of possible presents, but she does it to perfection and also tells us a little bit about Caroline – that she is conscientious and imaginative, doesn’t stereotype the non-existent little girl too much, and is good at her job. And as it happens the whole book is about love, friendship and loyalty… To me, this throwaway paragraph illustrates what makes French such a great writer.




The pictures of rural Ireland are from Denise Perry, always my favourite photographer, and were taken in Co Donegal in Ireland, some way north of the setting of this book.

There is an absolutely wonderful piece on The Searcher on the Vox website – illuminating and perceptive. It’s by Constance Grady, who is always illuminating and perceptive.

And of all unexpected places to end up – Pope Francis recently produced an encyclical Fratelli Tutti: here he is talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan. You could say this is what The Searcher is about.

72. The parable begins with the robbers. Jesus chose to start when the robbery has already taken place, lest we dwell on the crime itself or the thieves who committed it. Yet we know them well. We have seen, descending on our world, the dark shadows of neglect and violence in the service of petty interests of power, gain and division. The real question is this: will we abandon the injured man and run to take refuge from the violence, or will we pursue the thieves? Will the wounded man end up being the justification for our irreconcilable divisions, our cruel indifference, our intestine conflicts?


Words that I think would very much resonate with Tana French.





This picture and the one above it:
'In Ireland, many Neolithic stone monuments with flat roofs bear the local name "Diarmuid and Gráinne's Bed" (Leaba Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne), being viewed as one of the fugitive couple's campsites for the night. They elope and hide together, travelling around the countryside.'

Oh my god what a book! Gripped from the start and I was up way to late at night trying to finish this book. Brilliant read!

The Searcher is quite different from Tana French's more action-packed Dublin Murder Squad series. It's more of a slow-burn psychological drama/mystery, and is at least as much character- as plot-based. I really enjoyed it.
Retired Chicago detective Calvin (Cal) Hooper has bought a run-down rural property near the (fictional) village of Ardnakelty in western Eire (Ireland), and is in the process of restoring it to a habitable state. He has begun to make acquaintance with several of the local farmers, and often enjoys a drink at the local public house. Ever the detective, Cal realises that someone's hanging around his property and covertly observing him, and one day he manages to flush out local 13-year-old, Trey Reddy, and slowly begins to gain the child's trust. It transpires that Trey's older brother, Brendan, disappeared without trace several months previously, and Trey is desperate for Cal's help in trying to find out what's happened to him. Has he simply left his poverty-stricken family behind, to seek work in Dublin or England, or has something more sinister befallen him? Reluctant at first, Cal is gradually dragged into the search for Brendan, despite frequent warnings from friends and strangers, some violent, to leave the matter alone.
Tana French's writing evokes the beauty of the natural landscape of rural Ireland, as well as the day-to-day struggles faced by many who live there. The characters of Cal and Trey are well-developed and multi-faceted and there's a strong and varied cast of supporting characters. Underpinning the unfolding drama is Cal's sense of isolation and not knowing who to trust, as a newcomer to a place where everyone knows everyone else's business, often for generations back. Enmities and alliances run deep and are not always evident on the surface. I found the developing understanding between Cal and Trey, who have both become prickly "loners" for their own reasons, fascinating and heart-warming.
The Searcher is an engrossing and beguiling novel, and well worth the read for those who enjoy a more literary style of character-driven crime drama or mystery.
My thanks to the author, publisher Penguin UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

What a superb book by a great author. I loved all the descriptions of the people, the scenery and the everyday activities. After reading this book it has increased my des ire to go and visit Southern Ireland. The book is full of humour nd kept m guessing all the way through as to who was responsible for what.. it was easy to get into the thinking and behaviour of Cal, who was a Chicago Police Officer tha has gone to a small Irish village in the wilderness to settle down and unwind. What a surprise he finds when he meets Trey..
At places it describes sordid scenes and so a reader needs to be aware, however these descriptions bring everything into picture format and add fully to the story.
I look forward to reading more from this author.

The Searcher is another captivating and atmospheric read from one of my favourite thriller writers.

One of the things that most stands out about this book is the author’s beautifully vivid descriptions of the setting. The harsh hostile environment really seems to come to life and at times almost seems like a character itself as if it’s reacting to everything that’s going on. I thought it definitely helped add to the atmosphere in the book as it creates quite a claustrophobic, foreboding feeling to the story.

This book does start of slowly but soon becomes very gripping as the reader learns more about the mystery. There were multiple threads running through the story which the author manages to weave together cleverly. I kept changing my mind about who was behind everything and about who I could trust, as everyone seemed to be hiding things. There are some violent parts of the book which might not be to everyone’s taste both towards animals and people but they are not overdone and could be easily skipped over if necessary.

I think this author just keeps getting better with her wonderful writing just captivating the reader from start to finish. Her characters are always believable which adds to my enjoyment as I feel the events in the book are realistic and could actually happen. I can’t wait to read more from her in the future.

Huge thanks to Georgia Taylor for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This story is about Cal. He is an ex police officer who has moved from Chicago to a small village in Ireland He is happy with his quiet life, renovating his property, going for walks and getting to know the locals. Cal quickly realises that he is being watched. One day he finds 13 year old Trey on his property. Trey wants Cals help to find the brother Brendan who has run away according to the mother. Trey doesn’t believe this. Even though it is the last thing that Cal wants he decides to do some investigation on Trey’s behalf. There are a lot of people in the village who do not appreciate Cal asking questions.

This is a very slow paced story with lots of description. In all honesty I thought that although it was an interesting story it was just far too long. There is so much that could have been cut out without losing any understanding of the plot. I just felt it needed to be more focused on the main plot as there was no real subplots to focus on in between. I really enjoyed the relationship between Cal and Trey. I am really torn on whether I liked the ending or not. It definitely is not predictable which is something I am always looking for in mystery and thrillers.

Wow, this was incredible. It’s the first book of Tana French that I’ve read but I will make sure I get and read the others. It was pure tension, mystery, a perfect read to curl up and get lost in.

Cal Hooper is the ex-Chicago cop who uproots himself and decides to retire to a small Irish town, where nothing much happens, everyone knows your business and gossip is currency. It seems that the most he has to worry about is being set up with any single woman of a certain age until a local kid, Trey, arrives on his doorstep wanting him to help find their missing brother.

The pace of the book very much mirrors the pace of the town and is rich with atmosphere and characters. As the outsider, Cal has to decide whether he settles down to an easy life or do what he knows to be right and help Trey discover what secrets the town hides. As he starts to investigate he finds that the initial bonhomie of the locals might hide something dangerous, but Tana French makes no judgements about the decisions these people make, and the events are presented as they are. The emotional punch comes from the reactions of the characters to what happens, and the strength of the writing meant that I was able to understand that this green rural idyll has many shades of grey.

The book is a masterful play on the idea of a Western set in a very different location and I absolutely adored it.

My thanks go to the publishers and Net Galley for the advance copy in return for an honest review.

Yet another book by Tana French in which she slowly pulls back the layers to expose the truth beneath. In this one, Cal, a retired Chicago detective, moves to rural Ireland in search of a new and simpler life. As he begins to restore his ruined farmhouse, he gets to know the locals and stumbles across the mystery of a missing teenager. He slowly gets drawn in despite resisting and unpicks the secrets of a close knit community. These books are not pacy but I still find them page turners,. Thoroughly enjoyed.,

“The morning has turned lavishly beautiful. The autumn sun gave the greens of the fields an impossible, mythic radiance and transformed the back roads into light-muddled paths where a goblin with a fiddle, or a pretty maiden with a basket, could be waiting around every game and-bramble bend. Cal is in no mood to appreciate any of it.”

Tana French is such an exquisite writer, with a gorgeous turn of phrase and a sensibility and imagination where the fae and the other and the gothic seem to be breathing heavily in the background and The Searcher is no exception.

In The Searcher – which is not one of her Dublin Murder Squad series – we focus on Cal, a Chicago cop retiring to rural Ireland after a difficult divorce. Cal is a fascinating character: he is capable of violence but bound by an iron self control, disillusioned and cynical yet also romantic, aching for his family which is on the other side of the Atlantic and grasping hard on the opportunity to fill that void.

The novel opens as a paean to Ireland and landscape and the countryside and abounds with sentences like this

Landscape is one of the few things he knows of where the reality doesn’t let you down. The West of Ireland looked beautiful on the internet; from right smack in the middle of it, it looks even better. The air is rich as fruitcake, like you should do more with it than just breathe it…

and this

The mountains on the horizon look like someone took a pocketknife and sliced neat curves out of the star-thick sky, leaving empty blackness. Here and there, spread out, are the yellow rectangles of windows, tiny and valiant.

The people around him and in the village of Ardnakelty are more of a problem for Cal: his busybody of a neighbour Mart; the group of locals who drink in the local pub, Seán Óg’s; Noreen who runs the only local shop and is desperate to matchmake between Cal and Lena, her widowed sister; the impenetrable network of family, cousins, marriages, friendships and alliances within the little village community and farms; and of course the Reddy family living in the mountains, a single mum and her six kids, one of whom, Trey, starts to sneak around Cal’s ruin of a house.

Trey has learnt that Cal was a cop and Trey’s brother has disappeared, which drags Cal into a complex family dynamic and unearths secrets and dangers within the community into which he has found himself. Tensions are discovered, subtle undercurrents of threat and menace which resolve into real violence.

I’ll be cautious about giving too many details, for fear of spoiling the novel because the plot does carry its fair share of twists, but there was a sub plot: sheep on some of the farms were being attacked and slaughtered and butchered, one farm after another, with wild theories raised about aliens and animals

“Come here,” he says, shifting his bulk around on the bar stool to face Cal. “Listen to this. Night before last, something kilt one of Bobby’s sheep. Took out its throat, its tongue, its eyes and its arse; left the rest.”

“Sliced out,” Bobby says.

Senan ignores this. “What would you say done it, hah?”

“If I was a gambling man,” Cal says, “my money’d be on an animal.”

“What animal?” Bobby demands. “We’ve no coyotes or mountain lions here. A fox won’t touch a grown ewe. A rogue dog would’ve ripped her to bits.”

I loved this side to the novel! Beasts stalking the ancient landscape is so deliciously Tana French! It took me back to the first Dublin Murder Squad series novel, In The Woods, in which the woods were or may have been haunted by a goat-smelling presence, or perhaps the muscular darkness lurking in the attic of Broken Harbour. And it was wonderful seeing Cal seduced by the possibility of something other as an explanation for these mutilations in his neighbours’ fields. I am a sucker for those urban or rural folkloric tales of big cats and the beasts of Bodmin Moor, the Roy Dog… tales that could resolve in mundane explanations (escaped pets) or something more supernatural.

The novel is not, however, plot driven: the plot is present but, detached from any pressure of the institution of the police procedural, is pursued languidly and leisurely – and the renovations in Cal’s dilapidated house, his and Trey’s work on the damaged desk together, the rooks and rabbits and fishing all take up as much of the word count as the search for the truth behind Trey’s brother’s disappearance.

What is at the heart of this novel are the characters and their relationships: Cal’s pseudo-surrogate father figure relationship with Trey is wonderful and difficult; his friendship with Lena grows into something positive and supportive and unsentimental as the rocks beneath the landscape; his friendship with Mart. Ardnakelty itself, the village and its community, is so vividly realised that it becomes a character in its own right.

The denouement and resolution of the novel is also wonderfully French: unlike many crime fiction writers, French’s resolutions are rarely simple or comforting. Truth and right and justice are complex terms and far from synonymous is French’s novels – and the resolution of this one follows the same pattern. It is credibly lacking in neatness or simplicity: the resolution is complex, nuanced and difficult and I have loved that about most of her novels.

On a few occasions, the novel does strain credibility a touch: Cal’s ability to get people to discuss difficult and personal histories without the support and authority of a badge, and particularly as an outsider within a close-knit community, did rankle a little bit in places – it’s hard to see why these people did not resort to close lipped sullenness or a terse “Feck you” more often! But these were mere moments and outweighed by far by the luminous and beautiful prose as French slides from colloquial slang to lyrical description, from humour to horror, with ease.

This is the sort of quietly distutbing novel that remains with you for longer than you expect after reading it.

Although she is a prolific, well-known name in the crime genre, I’ve only ever read one other Tana French book -In The Woods. While I enjoyed it, I remember it taking me a while to read, which I’m not used to with thrillers or mysteries. When I was approved for her latest release, I wasn’t really sure what to expect but the synopsis drew me in and I was looking forward to starting it.

Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago cop who has emigrated to the remote Irish village of Ardnakelty. He plans on doing not much more than doing up his little cottage and taking walks in the beautiful mountains. However, these plans are scuppered when he gets wind of a missing boy case and the strange realisation that the boy’s brother is the only one who seems to care.

The Ardnakelty community felt very Stephen King-esque and these small town settings are perfect for evoking a eerie atmosphere, which worked really well in this book. Amongst the eccentric cast of working class Irish characters, there was an unsettling feeling of not-right-ness. I couldn’t understand why a community as close-knit as they were didn’t seem to care about Brendan Reddy’s disappearance. The fact that it was simply assumed that he’d gone off on his own accord and it was only Trey that questioned it was highly disturbing and immediately made me consider whether the whole town was involved.

The descriptions of the geography of Ardnakelty as part of rural Ireland were really captivating. French is fantastic at conjuring vivid images of place and in some parts, these descriptions were very detailed. I think it’s these passages that very much slow down the pace of her novels but they’re so well-written, it’s almost a worthy sacrifice. However, if you’re a lover of plot-driven, twisty thrillers, Tana French possibly isn’t a great choice of author for you.

Cal is very much a middle-aged man, befuddled by the modern age. He has a pretty cynical view of his daughter’s generation and struggles with seemingly performative wokeness, which he thinks he observes in his daughter’s boyfriend. I very rarely get to experience the goings-on of the mind of a man like Cal but his inner monologues definitely fit what I’d imagine from him.

Where Cal excels in his ability to nurture and impart wisdom to young teens like Trey. Their friendship slowly grew to one that resembled a parent-child dynamic and it was really lovely to watch. There is a twist regarding Trey during the second half of the book and I was shocked by how much it changed the way I thought of the character. It brought attention to some unconscious biases that I was perhaps holding and really made me question them, which I hadn’t been expecting to do. So, thank you to French for that!

The Searcher definitely has the dark, unsettling vibe that is essential to all good thrillers but it is very slow-burning. In some places, I felt that French was building more of a character study of Cal and the fact that he is living a life that is new to him, rather than the actual mystery. I think I also wanted more of a dramatic ending and resolution than it left me with. So, although there were certainly aspects of it I enjoyed, it didn’t excite me in the way that my favourite mysteries do.