Will I love The Witch Elm?

I enjoy reading mysteries for relaxation, and it is always pure pleasure to find a literary mystery. Irish writer Tana French, whom I just discovered this year, is a brilliant author. Her books are not formula mysteries but beautifully crafted novels with complex plots and characters. In the The Witch Elm, a tree is rendered with the strength of a character. From beginning to end, French's writing flows with a command of psychological drama, nuance, poetic phrases, and surprising metaphors that create her story's environment, mood, and suspense. I couldn't put it down!

The psychological depth of the characters is remarkable. French creates an inner live so vivid and strong that the reader becomes not just involved with, but embedded in her characters. The main character Toby is suffering from a brain trauma and his memory is, at best, spotty. When suspicion falls on him, he cannot be sure what he's done or who he is. The mystery in this novel is not so much of a whodunit but is more of a whoisit. A very entertaining book.

This book wrecked me. As a psychological thriller, it dives deeply into the psyche of an ordinary person surviving a horrific event and the fallout that comes after it. The prose is gorgeously written and the characters are well developed, with intense dialogue and a sympathetic, unreliable narrator. The protagonist’s mental illness unfolds in such a brutal manner that it took my breath away.