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Broken Harbour

Dublin Murder Squad: 4. Winner of the LA Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction Book of the Year

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Broken Harbour

By: Tana French
Narrated by: Hugh Lee
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About this listen

 In Broken Harbour, a ghost estate outside Dublin - half-built, half-inhabited, half-abandoned - two children and their father are dead. The mother is on her way to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder squad's star detective. At first he and his rookie partner, Richie, think this is a simple one: Pat Spain was a casualty of the recession, so he killed his children, tried to kill his wife Jenny, and finished off with himself. But there are too many inexplicable details and the evidence is pointing in two directions at once.

Scorcher's personal life is tugging for his attention. Seeing the case on the news has sent his sister Dina off the rails again, and she's resurrecting something that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control: what happened to their family, one summer at Broken Harbour, back when they were children. The neat compartments of his life are breaking down, and the sudden tangle of work and family is putting both at risk . . .


(P)2012 Hodder & Stoughton©2012 Tana French Crime Fiction Modern Detectives Mystery Fiction Suspense

Critic Reviews

I've been enthusiastically telling everyone who will listen to read Tana French. She is, without a doubt, my favorite new mystery writer. Her novels are poignant, compelling, beautifully written and wonderfully atmospheric. Just start reading the first page. You'll see what I mean.
The half finished housing estate with jerry-built boxes is eerily reminiscent of a J. G. Ballard dystopian setting - establishing atmosphere is one of French's many strengths. Gradually, an emotionally jolting story of love, obsession and madness is played out to incredible effect. Since her first novel, In the Woods, was larded with awards in 2007, French has garnered a huge legion of fans and they will be thrilled with this, her fourth and possibly best novel.
The most breathtakingly brilliant and close-to-perfect thriller I've read for a long time.
Tana French is one of those rare novelists who combine a gift for dialogue and characterisation, with suspense, intrigue and fabulous plotting. And she's a beautiful writer, to boot. A real treat.
Edgar-winner French's eloquently slow-burning fourth Dublin murder squad novel shows her at the top of her game . . . French excels at drawing out complex character dynamics
All stars
Most relevant
Narrator was excellent, the story conveyed so beautifully and eloquently it felt like a magnificent play from a cast not a narration by a single gifted person. The lead character was cleverly portrayed as a flawed hero, the story twisted and turned every thrilling chapter.

Amazing

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Keeps you on the edge, twists & turns ensure you listen all hours.... Really good!

Phew ... what a story...

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If you could sum up Broken Harbour in three words, what would they be?

Kept me guessing

Who was your favorite character and why?

All the characters were complex and interesting and flawed, I didn't have a favourite.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

When the story of the creature in the ceiling and walls evolved, when the detectives discovered the internet chat conversations, I kept wondering what the thing was. I still don't know whether it was real or not.

Any additional comments?

Great pace, great listen. I loved the range of accents the author used. It was intriguing from the start to the end.

Kept me guessing

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I loved this book. I found it completely absorbing and couldn’t stop listening. Great narration too.

A great read

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The book is essentially about the way the lead detective and his rookie partner negotiate the investigation and draw their conclusions. Class points of view and personal history influence the conclusions they draw and provide the intellectual structure of the novel. The debate is about how the crash in Ireland influenced the lives of individuals. At times I skipped over these long passages of dialogue - "OK we get it". That is the reason for my "needs an edit" headline for the review. Coping with Mental Illness ia a stone theme in the fabric of the novel.

I had met Scorcher in Faithful Place but this character didn't seem to project the same elements as in Broken Harbour. He seemed completely different. Granted the view of Scorcher in Faithful Place was vague compared to the detail and inner world of that drawn in Broken Harbour but Scorcher was unrecognisable as the character from Faithful Place which leaves me wondering why make it the same character at all.

The big disappointment though was the ending which seemed to just disappear into Broken Harbour's sea spray. It's hard to keep going on a novel when all of the characters are unlikeable. That is how I found the majority of them, excluding the rooky detective. We as readers need to at least feel we understand them. I didn't really feel that. Maybe it was the performance, the delivery - I don't know.

Needs an edit.

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