The Searcher by Tana French

Viking, 464 pages, $27

Aren’t we all searchers for something? As usual, Tana French layers even her book titles with many meanings. (Not all book titles are chosen by the authors, so if I’ve made an erroneous assumption, then hooray for the editor.) The hero of the book, ex-Chicago police officer, Cal — does he have a last name, not that it matters — has settled in the small Irish village of Ardnakelty — I kept hearing “hark, naked lady” whenever I saw that name — to distance himself from a failed marriage, an adult daughter with whom he has difficulty relating, and a job as a police officer that was no longer satisfying. He is a searcher for something to put his life into perspective.

Cal becomes a searcher in another sense when a thirteen-year-old neighbor impinges on his peace. Trey has heard that Cal is ex-police. Trey’s nineteen-year-old brother, Brendan, has been missing for a month or two. Brendan’s family has not heard from him. His mother has had a hard life and she cares, but there is nothing she feels she can do to find him. It is Trey who, in the optimism of dawning adulthood, wants to find Brendan. And Trey has come in the awkward, rude manner of an almost feral child of the woods to ask Cal for help.

It’s not that Cal thinks it will be an easy task to find Brendan, but he does have some skills, if no longer the connections, to at least attempt a cursory search. When the easy attempts fail to turn up anything, he makes the serious choice to delve further. And that, in a nutshell, is Cal’s best and worst trait.

The search is almost just background noise for what Tana French does best: create characters with depth, sorrow, goodness, confusion, and a need to know more about themselves. It is through the many detours French takes that we learn more about Cal, what brought him to Ireland, and most majestically, the land Cal settles into and its inhabitants. It is an alien world and Cal, rightly, steps gingerly into his role as a stranger in a strange land.

This is another strength Tana French brings to the writing table: She can inhabit any psyche, male or female, young or old, American or Irish, and make them sound authentic. In this case, the bodies are a middle-aged American, an ancient Irish neighbor man, a rural-loving middle-aged woman, a teenager, a good-intentioned but dim bulb of a young man, and in a minor but spotlighted part, a nosy storekeeper. Look to the characters and they will tell you a story.

Although the story is a third-person narrative, all roads lead out from Cal. It is his story and yet it is not. It is also the story of a small village, of its secrets, joys, mysteries, eccentricities. I rejoice to read French’s interpretation of life, even though I found “The Searcher” dragging in some spots. I pushed myself through those spots to savor what I knew would be French’s signature twistiness at the end.

P.S. I am confounded by why this book would be the #1 bestseller in the “Witch & Wizard Thrillers” section on Amazon.