I had such a hard time starting this book, not because I didn’t want to start it, but because I didn’t want to finish it, and I knew that I would have hit the bottom of my unread French books. I had also heard it was the best of the Dublin Murder Squad books, and I have to disagree, but even her worst for me was a four star, so no shame in being beaten by your own works. And it’s not like this was bad. It just is VERY different from her previous books.
Here we follow Toby, a robbery victim whose subdural brain injury impacts his memory, to his terminal uncle Hugo’s house for a last goodbye. However, the family reunion is interrupted by the discovery of a human skeleton in the trunk of the Wych Elm tree in their garden, prompting the Murder Squad to investigate. Unlike French’s previous books, this is all told from Toby’s perspective, so we are only following his own detective work, and his is less about solving a murder than unfolding his own family’s past and the reliability of his own memories.
Here there be mild spoilers:
This really reminded me a lot of the movie Knives Out if it were played as a straight drama instead of a comedy. Make of that what you will.
And, as promised, the picture of my bookshelf. Mind you, this isn’t my bookshelf. It’s my UNREAD bookshelf. I have a straight up problem, you guys. There’s another bookshelf in my library (of seven full bookshelves) that has a shelf devoted to unread books. My goal is to at least get the library free of unread books. I am weak.
