The Hunter: A Novel

In this novel, all my favorite characters return, including our beloved manipulator, Mart. The story unfolds through the perspectives of three individuals: Cal Hooper, Lena, and Trey. Despite their unspoken connections, they’ve formed a sort of makeshift family.

When Trey’s father, Johnny, reappears in town, Trey isn’t elated. She suspects he has ulterior motives. However, her family rejoices at his return (especially since Trey’s youngest brother and sister. Trey, however, remains wary. She believes Johnny is scheming something. To exact her own revenge on the townspeople for what they did in the first book, The Searcher, she plans to keep an eye on her father. Trey reluctantly joins his ruse to “help” the townsfolk extract gold from their land.
Enter a stranger named Rushborough who is introduced by Johnny, claiming he met Rushborough from his London adventures. This polished gentleman claims that his grandmother once lived in their town and knew about gold buried in the backyard. However, the exact location remains unclear due to the passage of generations—a bit like the telephone game. The central question becomes: Who is the predator and who is the prey?

The novel maintains a dark and brooding tone. While it may seem slow-paced at times, we must remember that the town is populated by struggling, “simple” characters. Their portrayal underscores the human need for survival.

Stunning. Enthralling. Couldn’t put it down. Made me want to visit Ireland, yet be quite careful with the land bogs and to do the right things. I cannot wait to borrow every Tana French novel from my library! Read 8/2024, 11/2024

Sequel better than the first book. The storyline was more involved, the intricacies between relationships was interesting as they evolved. Still takes place in the small town in Ireland, Sam retired cop, at this time he gets a girlfriend, and the relationship with the young girl evolves. In this story her father returns, and adds layers to that family structure.

“Everyone needs a code to live by.” at least that’s what retired Chicago PD Cal Hooper told fifteen-year-old Trey Reddy a long time back. She “only partway understood what he meant, but in spite of or because of that, she thought about it a lot. Her code has always been a rudimentary, inchoate thing, but since her dad came back, it’s been coalescing and sharpening, pointing ways and forming demands of its own. If she can’t kill anyone for what they did to [her brother], or even send them to prison, she needs a blood price.” “Paddy Englishman, Paddy Irishman, and Paddy American walked into a gold rush, and Paddy Englishman never walked out…the hills are alive with the sound of shotguns…Trey is pretty sure Cal’s code doesn’t allow for straight-out lying to detectives about a murder to dump innocent men in the shite. When it comes to his code, Cal is inflexible. He’s equally inflexible about keeping his word, which he takes as seriously as Trey does, and if he doesn’t see this the same way as her, he’ll think she’s breaking her word…Cal would forgive her many things, but not this…she isn’t doing this because it’s worth it, but because it needs to be done.” “Trey, like anyone from Ardnakelty, has a gut-deep understanding of the ferocious power of talk…fluid, slippery, switchbacking, forging twisting channels you can’t predict…A solid thing appearing in front of the men’s faces, brazen and unreliable, has a different kind of power, to which they’re unaccustomed and against which they have few defenses. She lets the gold do its own talking.” “Boredom makes a man’s mind restless, and then he tries to cure the restlessness by doing foolish shite…When I get to feeling restless, I do a bitta reading about something new, to keep my mind on an even keel.” Tana French’s The Hunter will bewilder the boredom right out of you!

I loved all the well behaved dogs in this book. Also the rooks collectively as characters was delightful. I do wonder how all the dogs were so well behaved? Is that training documented somewhere? The characters also did an awful lot of walking , after spending a few days reading this novel my legs were tired.

I continue to be impressed with how seamlessly I'm immersed into the small towns that French creates so vividly that when I step away the real world seems dull. Cal, Lena and Theresea were fully flushed out characters, easy to root for, and when the truth slowly was revealed I did not see it coming.

The politics while initially engaging after a time was a little tiring to translate as no one seemed to speak the truth straight out. I was glad for internal introspections or I might have been lost.

On the whole this was another enjoyable read by Tana French. I should have listened to my friend and co host April Freeman sooner, but if I had I wouldn't have the backlog of books in front of me. I'm not excited at all about the book hangover I'll be left with when I'm finished.