A stellar addition to this series. A police detective determined to be a straight arrow, but burdened with dark and difficult family pressures, leads a team to solve what looks like a domestic invasion and murder. Was it an intruder? Is it internal pressures within the marriage? And what about the loneliness and desperation of people who moved to their dream house only to find it an empty failed development, which they can't even maintain because of job loss and a need for perfection?

The senior detective takes on a new member of the squad, a smart young man with empathy to spare.
He's never really had a true partner, always training the new ones and letting them go on to new placements. But they work together well. Will their backstories weigh the results?

The audio is excellent, excellent. ( )

This is another in the excellent crime series by Tana French set in Ireland and based around the work of the “Dublin Murder Squad”. This is the fourth book in the series, and the best so far.

This one is really harrowing, and absolutely gripping. Like all of the novels in the series so far, it is written from a first-person viewpoint, but a different narrator is featured in each novel.

This one is based on the viewpoint of Matthew Kennedy, a forty-ish career police officer who had had a great record in solving high-profile crimes, but who has been sidelined for some years for reasons of internal politics. He is delighted, therefore, to be called in to tackle a major crime which will hit the headlines–a shocking incident in which several members of a family have been found dead; two young children still in their beds, the mother and father in the kitchen with multiple stab wounds. The father is dead. The mother, though terribly wounded, turns out to still be breathing and is rushed into intensive care, and at first is unable to be interviewed.

The family were living on a newly-built estate more than an hour’s drive from Dublin. Alas, the estate was thrown up quickly by a greedy developer who went broke when the recession hit; many houses are unfinished, and all have construction problems. Living there is a trap for many young couples hoping to get into the housing market. The breadwinner of the dead family had been out of work for months, having lost his job in the same recession. Living in this remote estate has isolated them from the support group of family and friends.

The immediate assumption, then, is that this is a murdersuicide case where the husband has snapped and tried to take his whole family with him. But, of course, that simple though tragic explanation turns out to be suspect.

There are many strange aspects to the case. Why are rough holes knocked into the plaster walls all over the house, despite how neat, tidy and well-looked after the rest of the interior has been kept? Why is there a massive animal trap set up in the attic? Why did the wife tell

her sister she was convinced a stranger had been coming regularly into their house despite locks and an alarm system? Why has the family’s computer been wiped, and by whom?

The explication of the case involves not one but three deep psychological dramas or obsessions; not to mention opening up the wounds of long-buried family issues for Kennedy himself.

The solution to the mystery, when it comes, is shattering and heart-breaking. The light it throws on Ireland’s economic boom and bust is a fierce one.

Highly recommended. ( )

Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad mysteries are multi-layered, thoughtful, and beautifully written. I've loved all 4 that I've read and I'm not sure I could pick a favorite, but Broken Harbor might be it. In this one, Detective "Scorcher" Kennedy and a newbie detective take on the case of a murdered family (only the wife survived) in one of the run-down housing developments that sprung up during Ireland's transient economic boom of the early 2000s. The setting is important, and it becomes almost a character. The atmosphere is creepy and unsettled and adds a lot to the reading experience.

I don't want to say too much more, but French's writing is propulsive and she handles several threads of the story deftly. I was slightly let down by one aspect of the ending, but still highly recommend the novel.

4.25 stars

"Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they've cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got a chance to happen." ( )

Good writing, as always. However, I am getting very frustrated with the abrupt endings of all the books in this series. I really like "closures". I know this is a deliberate writing style by the author, but it just is annoying. ( )

Know this, Tana French does not write a typical mystery. Her book is a study in psychological breakdown and trauma. I was also really happy to see French get over her problems with endings. My favorite of her books. I am a sucker for broken people. ( )