There’s a handful of authors whose books are so consistently excellent that for me they’re in the instantly-buy-without-even-reading-the-blurb-first category. Tana French is one of them. Her most recent novel is the third book to feature Cal Hooper, and by this point the retired detective from Chicago is a familiar and generally well-liked figure in the remote Irish village of Ardnakelty. He’s engaged to a local woman, Lena; is a surrogate father figure to a local girl, Trey; and is widely accepted by the local men who buy each other pints at the town pub.

But Cal’s peaceful existence is shattered when he pulls the body of a local girl, Rachel, from the cold waters of the river. Rachel is the long-term girlfriend of Eugene, the odious son of Ardnakelty’s richest – and likely most corrupt – resident, Tommy Moynihan. Tommy, recognising Cal’s unique reputation in the town, attempts to enlist his services to prove that Eugene had nothing to do with Rachel’s apparent suicide, and Cal’s refusal sets into motion an explosive series of events that peel back the thin veneer of civility to reveal the hungry rage at the heart of the village. In the face of small-town justice and the unspoken rules and generations-old local understandings, is Cal’s sense of fairness stronger than his belief in the law? Is his love for Trey and Lena deeper than his need to belong to the very community they’ve spent their lifetimes trying to escape?

Wry, with an undercurrent of dry humour, French perfectly captures the wild surrounds of the Irish landscape and the distinct cadence of its residents’ dialogue. This is an outstanding and thought-provoking crime novel perfect for readers who relish nuanced characters and twisty mysteries.