In Broken Harbor, Tana French returns to Dublin murder squad investigator Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, from her third novel, 2010's Faithful Place. Patrick Spain and his two children have been murdered in their home; Jenny, wife and mother, is in intensive care. At first, Scorcher and his rookie partner, Richie Curran, think it will be a slam-dunk, but there are weird goings-on. Pat and Jenny's house is squeaky clean--but why are there holes punched in the walls? Why are there baby monitors and cameras inside the holes? Why have computer files been erased? Who is the never-seen prowler, defying all locks and alarms?
Pat was convinced that he heard an animal in the attic; thus the holes and monitors. No one else ever heard anything. Was he going off the rails because he had lost his job and was about to lose his home?
Scorcher has his own painful history with Broken Harbor (now gentrified to Brianstown), where his family used to spend two halcyon weeks each summer in a caravan. That is, until the last time, when tragedy struck. That family loss particularly affected his mentally unstable younger sister, Dina. Hearing about murder in Broken Harbor has sent her reeling. Scorcher and Geri, his older sister, try to care for Dina, but she eludes them. Scorcher doesn't have his own memories as tightly under control as he once thought.
These two separate and very sad stories are multifaceted, complicated by many unknowns, and draw the reader deeper and deeper into the psyches of her characters. This is Tana French at her writerly best. --Valerie Ryan