Gorgeous writing. Good plotting. It unraveled slowly, and I got impatient, but I don’t think the pace was wrong. It fit in with the main character’s own unraveling. Heavy themes, violence, trauma. Sadness bordering on bleak. I was frustrated with several plot choices, including the resolution, but saying more will spoiler it. I’m also not sure they were wrong choices. In terms of doing what fit with the characters and themes, they worked, perhaps too well; I just hated what was happening (or not happening) because I wanted better outcomes for people involved. I want to read the next book in the series, I think. I don’t trust French enough to know where she’s taking me and if I want to spend the time to get there. But the writing is so good I’ll risk it.

An easy sidestep from Louise Penny to Tana French but with French, the cozy element pulls you in so the subsequent shattering of it hits even harder and all is not necessarily restored to order. No neat bow and calm conversation in a sunshine dappled garden at the end. Instead you’re left with pieces of a mess too great to be undone and forced to see justice and closure and neat endings as fantasy; reality itself is something layered, darker, still beautiful, but grim.