The Witch Elm by Tana French
Toby is young, in love and looking to make a upward career move until one day he participates in a huge faux pas in the art world. I hesitated to use the word faux pas when in reality it was all out fraud but after the fallout, Toby lands on his feet right back where he began. His colleague did not. He's back on easy street until one day intruders break into his apartment in the middle of the night and beat him almost to death.
As part of his recovery, Toby moves in with his dying Uncle Hugo in the old family home. Toby and his cousins, Susannah and Leon, spent many summers at the Ivy House while their parents left them to travel. Uncle Hugo turned a blind eye to most of the teenage adventures which suited the cousins just fine.
I have friends who love to read only mysteries and I'm trying to understand what they find so captivating. Tana French is a popular writer in this genre so I wanted to give her latest a try. I will say what I enjoyed most was the conversation between the cousins. They had a tendency to drink alot, smoke pot and share Toby's never ending supply of Xanax. But their conversations were so real and natural I felt I was sitting in front of the fire with them, chatting and laughing while trying not to wake Uncle Hugo who was sleeping upstairs.
What I didn't like is, the rest of the story was a real slog. And I still don't know who did it. The crime made no sense to me whatsoever ever. If you love solving crimes and piecing together the clues, you might like this story. After reading other reviews, most fans liked other Tana French novels much better. The writing is top notch but the story telling left me cold. I'm going to give mystery novels a rest for a while. After 500 plus pages of confusion, I need to get my thoughts back in order.
Toby is young, in love and looking to make a upward career move until one day he participates in a huge faux pas in the art world. I hesitated to use the word faux pas when in reality it was all out fraud but after the fallout, Toby lands on his feet right back where he began. His colleague did not. He's back on easy street until one day intruders break into his apartment in the middle of the night and beat him almost to death.
As part of his recovery, Toby moves in with his dying Uncle Hugo in the old family home. Toby and his cousins, Susannah and Leon, spent many summers at the Ivy House while their parents left them to travel. Uncle Hugo turned a blind eye to most of the teenage adventures which suited the cousins just fine.
I have friends who love to read only mysteries and I'm trying to understand what they find so captivating. Tana French is a popular writer in this genre so I wanted to give her latest a try. I will say what I enjoyed most was the conversation between the cousins. They had a tendency to drink alot, smoke pot and share Toby's never ending supply of Xanax. But their conversations were so real and natural I felt I was sitting in front of the fire with them, chatting and laughing while trying not to wake Uncle Hugo who was sleeping upstairs.
What I didn't like is, the rest of the story was a real slog. And I still don't know who did it. The crime made no sense to me whatsoever ever. If you love solving crimes and piecing together the clues, you might like this story. After reading other reviews, most fans liked other Tana French novels much better. The writing is top notch but the story telling left me cold. I'm going to give mystery novels a rest for a while. After 500 plus pages of confusion, I need to get my thoughts back in order.
No comments:
Post a Comment