The Searcher

By: Tana French

Narrated by: Roger Clark

Brought to you by Penguin.

A disappearance. A small town. A question that needs answering...

Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After 25 years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens.

But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can't make himself walk away.

Soon Cal will discover that even in the most idyllic small town, secrets lie hidden, people aren't always what they seem and trouble can come calling at his door.

Our greatest living mystery writer weaves a masterful tale of breath-taking beauty and suspense, asking how we decide what's right and wrong in a world where neither is simple, and what we risk if we fail.

©2020 Tana French (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"One of the most compulsive psychological mysteries since Donna Tartt's The Secret History." (The Times)

"To say Tana French is one of the great thriller writers is really too limiting. Rather she's simply this: a truly great writer." (Gillian Flynn)

"I'm a big fan of Tana French." (Ian Rankin)

Great narration, slow burn thriller set in Ireland

I loved the narration, one of the better narrators I have listened to.
Nice slow burning thriller.

brilliant story

Absolutely brilliant story and narration. can't wait for the next Cal story. Beautifully written with wonderful dialogue.

Excellent acting!

Loved the story. Really enjoyed the skilled narration - authentic accents that could be differentiated and excellent, rich description of Ireland.

Pedestrian

The writing was not memorable in any way, the plot line had no interesting twists and turns and the characters were not well developed. I just kept wishing it would hurry up and finish.
the narrater did an acceptable job, although his accents got muddled occasionally.

Compelling and complete.

I have to write this, if only to dilute the 'pedestrian' review on here. This book is anything but.
The writer (and I will now listen to everything she's ever done) masterfully captures the characters and the place.
You are right there in small town Ireland, living in all its spooky beauty.
Nothing is secret except the mystery at the centre of the book and the locals work hard to keep it that way.
I loved this - and the main character. He's something special.
Can't recommend The Searcher highly enough.

Dull and Boring

Don't pick up this book expecting to listen to a thriller, or a whodoneit, or anything similar to French's murder mysteries. It's a pseudo-"Western" plot that could have come out of a John Ford movie, transplanted to the west of Ireland. It is SLOW going. At one point I had listened to 2 hours and nothing of note had transpired. There are descriptions of idyllic scenery up the yin-yang, so much so that one appears right before the ending of the book! Who cares what the sunset looks like - can you please tie up the loose ends and give us SOME satisfaction for having invested 14-plus hours of listening to this tome? Sometimes a slow-listening novel has payback at the very end, or at least something to justify its glacial pace and keep you interested. But these characters are, for the most part, rather unpleasant and ornery types that you would never spend 5 seconds with in person, so why would we want to spend hours listening about them? The "resolution" is underwhelming and anyone with half a brain could have figured out the fate of the missing character - anyone with law enforcement experience could have told you after the first chapter what was going down. French was trying something "new" here and for me it was a failure. I've read all but 2 of her books over the years and this was truly a disappointment. I trust she will leave this genre (for want of a better word) and go back to what she does best: write about the Dublin murder detectives. At least those men and women are interesting!