Primarily, reviews are about preference: did I like this book? Was it good? Usually, the two converge; what is or what isn’t good is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. Occasionally, though, these two interlinked questions separate themselves. So what do you do when a book is very good, but you’re not sure you liked it?
Experienced detective Michael “Scorcher” Kennedy is called to investigate an unusually grisly crime scene: at a half-finished housing development – abandoned during the financial crisis – a young family has been attacked, leaving two young children and their father dead and their mother, Jenny, fighting for her life. Scorcher takes Richie, a young detective from the wrong side of the tracks, under his wing as he tries to solve the case. At first, it seems like a tragic but fairly uncomplicated murder suicide – the father, Pat, had lost his job during the crisis and the family were in financial trouble – but mysterious clues cloud the matter. Holes have randomly been punched in the walls throughout the house. Baby monitors have been installed all over, their cameras carefully hidden. And then there’s the setting, the unfinished development, far removed from civilisation, the roaring sea never far in the background.
There are several things that Broken Harbour does really well. Nearly all of the characters are multilayered, and they are never who they seem – be it the caring sister, the adulating partner or the former best friend, though not necessarily in a sinister way. This is even more true of Scorcher himself, whose unreliability as a narrator is exposed with a lot of tact and subtlety; we know Scorcher isn’t quite as righteous or perceptive as he believes himself to be, but we’re hard to pinpoint exactly why we feel this way. There are exceptions to this; Scorcher’s oily colleague Quigley, for example, is little more than a caricature, and the way the family’s trashy neighbours are described reeks of classism, and not in a good way. Overall, though, the characters are three dimensional, messy, complicated beings who don’t always act the way we think they will.
What the novel also does really well is bring an unheimisch sense of dread that hovers over every page, ready to grab you by the throat if you let it. The book is relatively tame when it comes to gore; the horror comes from both the insidiousness of the crime itself – two children, dead in their beds, the one place where they are supposed to be absolutely safe – and the setting. Broken Harbour reeks of desperation, from its setting by a filthy sea to the poor quality of the largely unfinished homes. Bought at more than their market value will ever be, the houses will never be sold and their buyers both know it and live in denial. The owners of the few homes that are occupied watch with despair as their homes sink back into the sand, and they cannot get out. The feeling is reflected in Scorcher’s private life as he struggles (and fails) to keep his sister, who suffers from some unspecified sort of mental illness, from slipping into full-blown psychosis. The investigation meanders, but every lead the investigators discover seems to be going nowhere. Make no mistake: this is a bleak book. It portrays despair and decay, and it does so very, very well.
From a technical point of view, this is extremely well done, and it didn’t bore me, like some of French’s earlier works did. It’s very good at what it does. Ultimately, though, I’m not sure it’s a very satisfying read. It left me feeling hollow. There is no neat conclusio, no satisfying moment where the vicious killer cowers fearfully in a dank cell somewhere. This isn’t necessarily a point of criticism but it requires a certain mindset.
I’m not sure I enjoyed it, though I will say this: I was on the fence about whether French was a good writer, but this one, at least, had me convinced.