Broken Harbor - Tana French

Book Specifications:

Original Title Broken Harbor

Author Tana French

Published July 2nd 2012 by Hatchette Books Ireland

ISBN 1444705105 (ISBN13: 9781444705102)

Series Dublin Murder Squad #4

Paperback, 533 pages

It’s not often (heck, more like never) that you get a crime-novel that moves you.

But Tana French manages to do that, Detective Mike ‘Scorcher’ Kennedy seems stiff-lipped, straight-a***d, stubborn - “Rule Number Three, and Four and Five and about a dozen more: you do not go with the flow in this job. You make the flow go with you.”  and those adjectives we typically use to describe the English but he has a heart...occasionally. And a mind too.

It all starts with a brutal, mass family-homicide. Pat Spain along with his two kids has been killed and his wife Jenny too has barely escaped...or has she?

Some digging leads to the name (and capture) of Conor Brennan...who strangely is not being the kind of witness Kennedy is used to. No sudden defences, no denial. Nothing. Only a quiet acceptance of the facts accusations.

And Kennedy’s partner Richie...the rookie who’s turning out to be a good find has different ideas about the crime.

With the accusation-arrow spinning too much for Kennedy’s taste from Pat to Conor and Conor to Pat and a dark past too(Broken Harbor was where his mother died),and adding to the mix Kennedy’s crazy sister Dina(she kinda made sense to me.I should be worried) and a  teetering-on-the-edge Jenny, Kennedy just might have too much too handle.

Just till they find out what really happened.

*I just wrote that paragraph and heck, it sounds like something straight off the jacket cover! Am I good or what!

And for those of you wondering what on earth this small print nonsense is, it’s just me having a complex. And the permission slip is here."You are allowed to have a complex”! Score!!!

I took some time reading this book (three days, 533 pages!) but there were always good parts to every session.

And the case isn't going to be easy -  If you’re good at this job, and I am, then every step in a murder case moves you in one direction: towards order. We get thrown shards of senseless wreckage, and we piece them together shards of senseless wreckage, and we piece them together until we can lift the picture out of the darkness and hold it up to the white light of day, solid, complete, clear... This case was different. It was running backwards, dragging us with it on some ferocious ebb tide. Every step washed us deeper in black chaos, wrapped us tighter in tendrils of crazy and pulled us downwards.

I’d always have something to think about just like a work of literary fiction and that’s hard to find!

Along with the detecting, and crime scenes, and post-mortems and things, you have the little sentences that touch you – “There isn't any why. That’s what I mean, trying to organize me. I'm not crazy because anything. I just am.”

 That you want to highlight and smile about - One of the definitions of insanity, my friend, is doing the same thing again and again and hoping for different results.

 That amazes you about the humanness of literary-characters - Interesting fact from the front lines: raw grief smells like ripped leaves and splintered branches, a jagged green shriek.

And I loved it. It was new reading a novel of the literary-crime genre (if that is one) but I loved it!

And I got my entry to the crime-section for the challenge done. HA!

Recommended as a gift to the crime-novel loving husband/boyfriend/nephew/wife/niece...or whoever you want to give a book that has SOMETHING in it along with all the slick gun-toting stuff they love!

A four point three (though some crime novel-lovers would give it more) and a thumbs up for surprising me!