Cal Hooper is back. Tana French first introduced him in The Searcher, when the retired Chicago cop moved to rural Ireland to live out his days in quiet and peace. However, Trey Reddy came into his life. The teen worked her way into Cal's home and heart through their shared love of carpentry, her homelife of relative poverty, and the disappearance of her older brother.
In The Hunter, Trey's absent father comes back into the picture after skipping out on Trey's mother and multiple younger siblings. As Tana French writes, "Johnny Reddy only wants to obtain money by being the big hero or the dashing bandit"; so, he comes back to the fictional Ardnakelty with a scheme. He claims an acquaintance from London, Cillian Rushborough, told him his Irish Granny knew that there was gold to be found near Ardnakelty.
Johnny Reddy and Cillian Rushborough go about trying to convince the local landowners to let them dig on their property for a kickback, and to invest money into the project as well. As the story progresses, crosses and double-crosses pepper the narrative making for a lively read. And when someone turns up dead, Trey sees an opportunity to get revenge on the people she thinks are responsible for her brother's disappearance. Cal's protectiveness over the reticent Trey gets him tied up in crooked Johnny's shenanigans.
Tana French's character development is sublime. Between locals at the pub ready to "leprechaun up" for gullible tourists and Trey's life-weary mother telling her "I shoulda picked ye a better father", the atmosphere of The Hunter is quintessentially Irish. I highly recommend both The Searcher and The Hunter by Tana French. I give The Hunter four stars out of five. https://youtube.com/shorts/sF0ayH5Ozg4?si=TVZ7xsx4EZ-TymE0
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