The Hunter: Slow, but for Good Reasons

 

 

The Hunter ( 2024) 

By  Tana  French 

Penguin Press, 469 pages.

★★★★★

 

The Hunter is the sequel to The Searcher (2020) and returns us to Ardnakelty, a village in western Ireland. The Hunter could be a standalone novel, but it would be wiser to first read The Searcher for deeper backgrounds of Cal Hooper, Trey Reddy, Lena Dunne, and their neighbors.    

 

As a refresher, Cal is a retired police detective who, for various reasons, wanted to get away from the madness of Chicago. He has been slowly refurbishing a cottage and is self-employed as a furniture restorer. That’s how he met Trey, a ragged boyish-looking urchin filled with attitude, who slowly responded to Cal's tough love, his cooking, and his lessons in woodworking. Lena is Cal’s girlfriend, but shies away from long-term commitment. If there is such a thing as a major minor character, it would be Cal’s neighbor Mart Levin who is, depending on your interpretation, either a sly fox or a slippery eel. 

 

The Hunter takes place two years after The Searcher. The Reddy family lives up the mountain from Cal and has a poor reputation. They are, in fact, literally poor, a sort of Irish version of hillbillies. Cal has been more like a father to Trey than her absentee biological father, but Johnny Reddy’s return from four years in London is the novel’s pivot. Trey hoped it her brother Brendan would return, but discovers that he was killed by a Dublin drug gang. Johnny is a local, a happy-go-lucky guy the villagers like but don’t trust. But the “new” Johnny is a smooth talker.

 

He tells the villagers of a man he befriended in London with roots in the region via his grandmother who informed him of gold in the mountains above Ardnakelty. All that’s needed is a bit of seed money to begin extracting the ore. Johnny is sent ahead to offer investment opportunities in the enterprise. He charms the locals, but Cal smells a con. When Cillian Rushborough, Johnny’s London friend, shows up he spins tales of his grandmother, the Irish food that he enjoyed as a child, and of sure-fire wealth. Soon the local pub chatter is abuzz with what villagers will do once they are filthy rich. 

 

Johnny states his intent to become a true head of his large family, including Trey. This presents a dilemma for Cal, who has labored to fit into the ways of the village. Does he have any right to hinder Johnny's right to raise Trey as he wishes? Trey is left to ponder why he is suddenly cool to her. Those who have spent any time in a village know that locals are slow to accept outsiders, especially those who puncture their dreams. Even Mart seems enamored of finding gold, though it's hard to know what he really believes and when he’s playing mind games. The few who see Cillian as a “plastic Paddy,” are outnumbered by those with visions of golden nuggets dancing in their heads. Not Trey; she wants revenge on her brother’s killers, whoever they may be. 

 

To say more risks spoilers, but I would like to address the novel’s mixed reviews. There are those like me who found it masterful; others deemed it boring and yearn for French’s Dublin Murder Mystery series, which was heavier on action. I think critics are missing something, not the least of which is that French brilliantly captures the slower rhythms of village life, a layered mix of colorfulness, insularity, gossip, and humdrum masking complexity.

 

The Hunter is a suspense and crime novel—there’s even a homicide or two–but it’s also a slice-of-life portrait. In Ardnakelty, everyone knows each other, but they don’t necessarily know about each other. Tana French is a brilliant writer; her sentences sparkle and her dialog is spot on. I would challenge those who think the book is too long to ponder whether their attention spans are too short. The Hunter has been aptly called a slow burn because it is character not action-driven.

 

French has worked on treatment for a third book, but hasn't committed herself to it yet.( Maybe she's like Lena in that regard!) I hope she writes it; I want to know if Cal can be accepted for himself, whether he and Lena get together rather than just getting it on, and what becomes of Trey, a damaged teenager of enormous promise and large obstacles to overcome.

 

Rob Weir