Review of THE WITCH ELM by Tana French

3 Stars

I was planning on reading the first book in the Dublin Murder Squad series since I’ve read so many positive reviews of it, but then I noticed that a standalone novel by the author was released earlier this fall.  I don’t know how The Witch Elm compares to the series, but I’m afraid the book doesn’t motivate me to read another Tana French novel. 

Toby Hennessy, as he states in the opening sentence, is a lucky person.   He is good looking, smart, athletic, and popular.  He has a good job, supportive parents, a close-knit extended family, stalwart friends, and a devoted girlfriend.  He has no real financial worries: he seems to have considerable savings and his parents put down the deposit when he purchased his apartment.  Toby suspects his cousin Leon thinks of him as “some pampered prince who had never dealt with anything tougher than a hangover” because even as a boy, “[Toby] never worried about getting in trouble – [he] always talked [his] way out of it.”

Toby’s good fortune comes to an end when he is brutally beaten in a home invasion.  As a result of the attack, he walks with a limp, slurs his speech, and has gaps in his memory.  In many ways, he looks like a stroke victim.  He also loses his confidence:  “Me, six months ago, clear-eyed and clear-voiced, sitting up straight and smart, answering every question promptly and directly and with total unthinking confidence: every cell of me had carried a natural and absolute credibility . . . Me now, slurring, babbling, droopy-eyed and drag-footed, jumping and trembling . . . defective, unreliable, lacking any credibility or authority or weight.”  

Toby moves in with his Uncle Hugo who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  While Toby is living at Ivy House, a body is discovered on the property and a murder investigation begins.  Because of his memory lapses, Toby starts to wonder if he may have played a role in the death.  

One problem I had with the book is its glacial pacing.  For pages and pages and chapters and chapters, nothing happens.  The discovery of the body, for example, doesn’t occur until page 162!  The pace occasionally picks up but then the plot becomes static again.  There are no real twists and turns, no real surprises.  Much of the novel consists of Toby’s speculations as his paranoia mounts.  

Another problem is that Toby is not a likeable character.  Before his trauma, he is judgmental and dismissive of others’ concerns.  When discussing disadvantaged youth, whom Toby describes as “scuzzy youths with low-grade criminal records,” he has little sympathy:  “’The recession’s over; there’s no reason for anyone to be stuck in the muck unless they actually choose to be.’”  When a friend with a less-privileged background tells Toby, “’You haven’t got a clue’”, Toby thinks his friend “liked to play up the wrong-side-of-the-tracks angle, when he wanted an excuse to get chippy and self-righteous.”

Even after his trauma, Toby does not become much more likeable.  He devotes a lot of time to complaining about the effects of the beating but does nothing to help himself.  He has no physiotherapy, speech therapy, or occupational therapy appointments during his extended stay at Ivy House.  His brain injury becomes a convenient excuse for violent behaviour sparked by a bruised ego.  He speaks about having learned about luck but by the time he explains his epiphany at the end, I didn’t care.

My other issue with the novel is two characters.  Toby’s girlfriend Melissa and his uncle Hugo are just too good to be true.  Since Toby is the narrator, we see the characters only from his point of view, but there is no evidence to suggest that they are less than saints.  And why would Melissa be so slavishly devoted to a self-absorbed Toby who shows little concern for anything outside his bubble of privilege?

This was a disappointing introduction to Tana French.  I appreciate that she does shed light on the devastating effects of brain injury.  Unfortunately, the book’s negative qualities outweigh the positive.