The Searcher by Tana French
Tana French’s The Searcher is the slowest mystery that I have ever read.
Cal Hooper is a retired police officer who finds himself in Ireland, fixing up a rather old house on a small spot of land. One day, he is minding his own business, living the simple life that he has always wanted, when a young boy stops over at his house. The boy wants Cal’s help with finding out what happened to his brother who has gone missing. When the police don’t care about your problems, who can you turn to? Apparently, Cal Hooper.
The Searcher is set in modern-day Ireland, a setting that I love. Aside from the setting, I also enjoyed that the women were not depicted as boy crazed. However, this book is slow, painfully slow. I started listening at 1.5X speed and ended up at 2X speed. Every time, I tried to read The Searcher, I dreaded it.
Most of the book is Cal fixing his house, descriptions of hunting (even very gruesome details), and a lot of people that don’t know anything. Rooks, the birds (not the chess pieces), were mentioned 40 times! There is so much filler in this book that the editor should cut at least 70% of the book. There just is not enough action.
This is a book where the character loves to talk about every single possibility, every possible path. Usually, I enjoy hearing the character’s thoughts, but in this case, it is overly done.
When there finally is a reveal, the author stretches it out so much. In my opinion, the author overly explains events. Most of Cal’s background information arrives in the last half of the book. This is just too late. By the time that his background is finally, finally revealed, I just did not care anymore.
In conclusion, The Searcher is a solid pass from me. There are too many books to read for a pace this slow.
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