The second wrinkle is that Kennedy is given a new rookie partner to work with, Richie Curran, who has managed to pull himself out of lower class squalor by his bootstraps to a hard-fought position on the Dublin Murder Squad. The first surprise is that the mother is still alive, but badly beaten and clinging to life with multiple stab wounds. The Spain family, are now dead in what they had hoped would be their forever home. A few families are hanging on, despite the crumbling foundations and shoddy workmanship. The developers fled during the economic crash, leaving behind empty and abandoned homes. A horrific case a report that an entire family of four - mother, father, daughter and son – have been found dead in Broken Harbor.īroken Harbor is a half-abandoned, so-called, luxury housing development on the coast near Dublin. Thatʼs how one of biggest cases of the year ends up in his hands. He plays strictly by the books and has a relentless work ethic. Kennedy is the big man of the Dublin Murder Squad. Broken Harbor is the fourth and there are two more in what is now commonly referred to as the Dublin Murder Squad series.īroken Harbor tells a case from Mick “Scorcherˮ Kennedy’s view point.

French’s installments take the point of view of a different member of the detective team. Her other books, The Likeness (2008) and Faithful Place (2010), have also distinguished themselves for their realistic (read gruesome) crime scenes, detailed, nuanced characters, and a loosely linked cast of detective protagonists.Įach of Ms. I’m a big fan of Tana French and am reading her Dublin Murder Squad series in order - I inhaled the first three and started Broken Harbor as my October, Halloween-ish read.įrench is notorious for her debut novel, In The Woods (2007) which violated one of the key rules of the murder mystery genre (I won’t tell!).

Broken harbour by tana french