The Searcher is a modern-day western set in Ireland.   Cal Hooper is a divorced, retired American who has moved to rural western Ireland, looking for peace, trying to leave behind a lifetime of police work and a broken marriage.   He picks a run-down house on the lower slopes of the mountain and sets about to fix it up, go fishing, and get a fresh start.      There are secrets in the village, though, and a young teenager (Trey) asks him for help in find a brother who has gone missing.    The story moves along slowly.    Characters, dialogue, and local color are well-developed and detailed.   It is partly a mystery, partly a crime story, partly a slow-burning thriller, but it is mostly a well-crafted novel about finding one’s moral compass.    A lesser writer may have clearly-defined good guys and bad guys, but the characters of this novel are ordinary people who face difficult choices and must call on themselves to make the right decisions and actions, regardless of the accepted  laws, what the police may require, and what people might think.   Cal, Trey, Cal’s neighbor Mart, and Lena allow us into their complex inner lives, and we are asked to understand and we are challenged to decide what we might do in the same situation.

Tana French is a gifted writer who brings creative insights and clever plots, unexpected twists, and rich layers of complexity to her books.    The Searcher is one of her best – 4.8 out of 5.0 stars4.8

An audiobook sample: