Using a location as a character in its own right is a very effective device and one that plays out brilliantly here. If the estate does not actually have a speaking part, it is certainly one of the major players in the drama. It is now the site of a Celtic Tiger era housing development called Brianstown, which has since degenerated into a ghost estate.įrench evokes very well the atmosphere of desolation and desperation in Brianstown. However, Curran seems bright and keen, so what could possibly go wrong? It does not help Kennedy that the crime has taken place in Broken Harbour near Balbriggan, a place that has great emotional resonance for him. Kennedy’s sidekick is a new recruit named Richie Curran, still raw and not yet grown out of wearing hoodies rather than shirts and ties. This creates a sense of unease right from the beginning you just know that solving the crime will not prove to be straightforward.

However right from the start, Tana French makes it clear that this murder case will prove to be Kennedy’s undoing, ‘this case should have gone like clockwork…By every rule in the book, this should have been the dream case’. A call has come in about an apparent multiple murder case: a couple and their two young children found dead in their home one morning. Therefore, when he is given another chance at a big one, he does not intend to turn it down. In the end I stayed up for a very late night to find out whodunit and why.Detective Mick Kennedy is an experienced hand, but his last big case ended badly a couple of years ago and he still has something to prove to his boss and the rest of the murder squad. I am rather belatedly getting around to reading crime writer Tana French (this is her fourth book) after listening to several colleagues raving about her work for the last few years. National Emerging Writer Programme Overview.

Broken harbour