Reading, Icing, Rinsing, Repeating . . .

I am still laid up and moving slowly today-- waiting for the cortisone shot to work its anti-inflammatory magic on my left knee-- I went for some x-rays this morning to make sure it isn't anything more than arthritis (and the x-rays were quite taxing, I had to lie on a cold metal bed and twist my leg this way and that way-- then the machine got finicky and they had to take a few shots over again, then I had to sit-up, holding the digital sensor board behind my knee, and freeze in that pose) and I've recently finished two novels, quite opposte in tone: The Keeper by Tana French, the third in the Ardnakelty trilogy, is dark and claustrophobic and insular, a Chicago cop retires to what seems to be an idyllic pastoral Irish village but then he learns that the town and its inhabitants have been entangled with the land and each other for centuries and you shouldd not mess with the locals . . . and by the third book, Cal Hooper has nearly become a local and he really gets involved in the town, a mysterious suicide, a woman, a once feral child, and the baroque relationships, hiearchies, and gossip mill that fuel much animosity and loyalty-- it's the usual Tana French, masterful, brooding, smart, and evocative . . . and then for something completely different, I read Volume 1 of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower, which can only be described as witty, delightful, and faux-Victorian-- it's mildly historical fiction (with lots of Shakespeare references) from the point-of-view of Emma Lion, once an upper-middle-class Victorian woman, but now thrown into difficult financial straits by her annoying fop of a cousin Archibald, who has spent much of her inheritance before she could manage it . . . it seems Emma will have to navigate all sorts of social and fiscal quandaries in her london milieu, but she'll do it with verve and aplomb and plenty of witty repartee and banter-- I'll certainly read a few more of these to take my mind off my knee.

Ardnakelty: Things Behind Things Behind Things

In Tana French's thriller, The Hunter, the rural Irish mountain town of Ardnakelty reminds me of the newish Bon Iver tune "Things Behind Things Behind Things"-- and retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper is pulled farther and farther into these rings within rings (this is the second book in the series, the first is The Searcher) and you know what happens once you get pulled in, it's tough to reach escape velocity; an evocative, slow-burn about how gossip and history and small-town mores can sometimes fuel animosity, violence, and worse (and I believe I have now read the complete of ouvre of French, who many conisder our greatest living mystery writer . . . I think I am one of them).

Broken Harbor Breaks Bad

Tana French's novel, Broken Harbor, is a crime procedural wrapped inside a portrait of insanity balanced atop a real estate crisis —and it's hard to remember when the real estate bubble popped, because it has reinflated, but it was less than two decades ago.

Tana French is The Bomb

I just finished The Trespasser by Irish-American mystery writer Tana French-- this is the sixth book in her "Dublin Murder Squad" series-- but each book is from the perspective of a different detective, so she does away with that whole "Sherlock Holmes genius detective trope" and instead focuses on how each case affects (and is affected by) the particular detective working the murder . . . and while I've read her books in no particular order (I also read Faithful Place and In the Woods in the Murder Squad series and her stand-alone novels The Wych Elm and The Searcher and I just started Broken Harbor) I am realizing that she is perhaps the best living mystery writer-- she is definitely a cut above Ruth Ware, although I love a Ruth Ware thriller-- so if you haven't read a Tana French novel, pick one at random and give it a shot, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Which Wych Elm?

The answer to the titular question is: the wych elm in the garden of Ivy house, the one keeping a sordid secret-- but it's going to take some preliminary reading to learn this, and some of it isn't going to be pretty: brain damage, brain cancer, and a lucky, privileged young man brought to his knees by events from his past-- events that had consequences that he was oblivious to then but are horribly apparent now . . . I'll say no more, aside from the fact that The Wych Elm is another masterful mystery from Irish-American author Tana French.