Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews
Written on Sep 13, 2014
In the tv show Castle the real culprit is surreptitiously brought into question and typically dismissed, only to come back with a "remember that guy?" Queue handcuffs please. That is how I felt about Conor. He confessed at the beginning of the story, well where's the story in that? There's something fishy, something isn't quite right, but what is it? That's a lot of questions to be answered and the author slowly unrolls them in superb style.
I really like reading more about Scorcher, and learning that he wasn't as big an asshole as he was in Faithful Place. Like all of French's detectives he was smart, and clever although I didn't care for his back story as much as some of French's other novels in the Dublin Murder Squad series. Schorcher's relationship with his sisters felt unfinished and thought it need some fine-tuning. Although, perhaps that was the point.
Richie, Schorcher's partner I don't really have much to say about. I did picture him as Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson but otherwise was non script.
When I was younger, I had an incident where my eye swelled up, and when people I didn't want to see would come over to "see how I was doing" I'd close my other eye and pretend to be asleep. I took advantage of my situation. Jenny closes her other eye from beginning to end, and while annoyed by it carries it off well leaving the reader asking "what could she be hiding?"
My only complaint is that I wish I had bought it in paperback or ebook as it was so gloriously big that when I stayed up late into the night I would wake up to the book in my face. Otherwise, Broken Harbor is a wonderful addition to Tana French's repertoire.
