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Broken Harbour
On sale
2nd July 2012
Price: £13.99
In Broken Harbour, a ghost estate outside Dublin – half-built, half-inhabited, half-abandoned – two children and their father are dead. The mother is on her way to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder squad’s star detective. At first he and his rookie partner, Richie, think this is a simple one: Pat Spain was a casualty of the recession, so he killed his children, tried to kill his wife Jenny, and finished off with himself. But there are too many inexplicable details and the evidence is pointing in two directions at once.
Scorcher’s personal life is tugging for his attention. Seeing the case on the news has sent his sister Dina off the rails again, and she’s resurrecting something that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control: what happened to their family, one summer at Broken Harbour, back when they were children. The neat compartments of his life are breaking down, and the sudden tangle of work and family is putting both at risk . . .
Scorcher’s personal life is tugging for his attention. Seeing the case on the news has sent his sister Dina off the rails again, and she’s resurrecting something that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control: what happened to their family, one summer at Broken Harbour, back when they were children. The neat compartments of his life are breaking down, and the sudden tangle of work and family is putting both at risk . . .
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Reviews
'The queen of Irish fiction ... This is a writer working at the height of her powers. As always with Tana French, you can expect humour, pathos and well-observed social commentary, but above all, a cracking story that keeps you guessing until the end'
'Broken Harbour is a complex, well crafted psychological thriller as well as an exemplary dissection of the plight of the disappointed and desperate human wreckage washed up in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. As always, French's carefully wrought prose is a delight ... A hugely impressive and intelligent book, with writing to savour. It confirms French as the First Lady of Irish Crime.'
'Gripping'
'Establishing atmosphere is one of French's many strengths. Gradually, an emotionally jolting story of love, obsession and madness is played out to incredible effect. Since her first novel, In The Woods, was larded with awards in 2007 French has garnered a huge legion of fans and they will be thrilled with this, her fourth and possibly best novel.'
Praise for Tana French
'I've been enthusiastically telling everyone who will listen to read Tana French. Her novels are poignant, compelling, beautifully written and wonderfully atmospheric. Just start reading the first page. You'll see what I mean.'
Every holiday needs a good crime novel and French's skilful thrillers are tailor-made to terrify
A gripping, literate thriller laced with black humour
If you're only going to buy one thriller this year, let it be Tana French's Faithful Place. Searing, utterly Dub, and very funny . . . Tana French, Dublin author of international hits . . . is a wonder. Just don't plan anything if you pick this up; you won't be able to put it down.
Gripping. Tana French's third novel hooks the reader from the outset; the characters are masterfully drawn, and the author's ear for Dublin dialogue is pitch-perfect.
The first thing that Ms. French does so well in Faithful Place is to inhabit fully a scrappy, shrewd, privately heartbroken middle-aged man. The second is to capture the Mackey family's long-brewing resentments in a way that's utterly realistic on many levels. Sibling rivalries, class conflicts, old grudges, adolescent flirtations and memories of childhood violence are all deftly embedded in this novel, as is the richly idiomatic Dublinese.
'Ambitious and extraordinary'
'Crime fiction at its best'
'One of the most startling debuts I have seen any writer make: polished, assured, ferociously intelligent, at once very original and effortlessly engaged with the conventions of crime fiction'
'Nothing short of a masterpiece. French's first three thrillers were all brilliant but this is by far her best and reaches a level of spine-chilling, gripping moreishness that will leave readers open-mouthed with admiration. If I encounter a better novel than Broken Harbour before French publishes her fifth, I'll eat a milliner's shop full of hats.'
Tana French is one of modern Ireland's great novelists. Broken Harbour isn't just a wonderful mystery novel, it's also the era-defining post-Celtic Tiger novel the Irish literati have been crying out for.