Quiet Sunday

 Tana French: The Keeper

This book is too long. There is a detective story in it but the author seems much more interested in describing the complex relationships among dozens of inhabitants of the little Irish town where Cal Hooper, an American policeman, has retired, but where he gets no peace. I forced myself to read to the end. By the time the one and only death in the story was explained, I didn’t really care.

Occasionally, I found some amusing mentions of food in the book, especially raspberry jam that one of the women puts up in little jars and gifts to several other women, an action that becomes enmeshed in the plot. Detective Cal likes to cook: “even though he only took it up out of a belief that Trey [his daughter] needed to eat something other than hamburgers and grilled cheese and whatever boiled-into-submission stuff her mother came up with. Now he tries fancy things all the time, and mostly they work out.” (p. 180)

At a cafe that’s central to the action, the food isn’t very good, mostly fried eggs and “toasties,” but the cozy atmosphere is important, especially in contrast to the nastiness that is a big part of life in the town (and not just the mystery part). It’s a depressing town, as exemplified here:

“The townland is scattered with these places, homes emptied by famine in the 1840s, orphaned by emigration in the seventies, left behind in the millennium rush to easier city jobs. Mostly no one bothers to knock them down.” (p. 356)

I’ve read all of Tana French’s earlier police and detective stories, and I think I liked them better than this one.

The Power Plant

Besides reading, we took a Sunday afternoon walk along the Huron River.

Review © 2026 mae sander