“Broken Harbor” by Tana French

When I first picked up this book, I was a little sad that French decided to write with Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy as the main character. He annoyed me a lot during “Faithful Place” and I wasn’t really looking forward to getting inside his head that much. Having said that, French does an amazing job of making him an interesting and relatable character, while staying true to the image that we get from “Faithful Place” as well.

The most interesting aspect of this book that I find is how it raises several moral questions that she hasn’t really addressed in her other books. I’ll give a brief overview of them, with some discussion.

-What is the role of the police? Scorcher is of the belief that police simply follow the rules and have no wiggle room for moral judgement or decisions. Richie, his rookie assistant, believes that is an impossible task for anyone, let alone someone dealing with crimes on a regular basis. In the end, Scorcher does come to agree with Richie, but it wrecks his career in the process. I believe that this demonstrates that French agrees with Richie, no one’s perfect and therefore they cannot tune out of the morality of the situation, but since the detectives are supposed to do the impossible and do that, it means that they cannot be that inshakable police force anymore. Of course, this reveals the flaw in the system: that ordinary humans cannot perform this role without shutting down their humanity.

-Sanity. The victim, Pat Spain, started showing signs of unhinging after losing his job. What would it take for anyone to go over that edge? I don’t have a clear answer for this one, other than it involves losing everything dearest to you and varies person to person. French seems to think the same.

-What punishment do people deserve? Does the perpetrator deserve to die, or can they be given a shot at life? And what kind of life, while we’re at it? A fulfilling, happy one, or a wretched one? This is particularly relevant now, since many states have started to stop using the death penalty, but it’s still an ongoing debate. French seems to side with the idea that people deserve life, and a slightly decent one.

Similarly, she thinks that this fate is one that people should fight for, and risk a lot in order to ensure that it gets carried out. When you are a part of a murder investigation, you have a lot of people’s lives in your hands, and you should risk a lot to make sure that they are treated well. That’s the responsibility that you accept with the job. The exact point where you stop working for that is unclear, but characters risk their job, lives, and livelihood for this goal.

-How does your mental state and your idea of how others see you affect how you see yourself? This is a concept that affects several characters, notably Scorcher and Jenny Spain. Scorcher tries to preserve his image as a tough guy so that his colleagues respect him. Similarly, he then sees himself as the crime fighting machine that he has to be and gets the job done. Jenny on the other hand needs to hide aspects of her life from the neighbors so that she could keep on living, but that leads to becoming a recluse. In both cases, what ends up destroying them is their view of themselves, which to them is directly related to how others see them. Conor’s outlook ends up being healthier, as he is always insisting on doing his own thing and not caring about everyone else. Of course, not everyone is that strong, so a balance is probably the best.

-Suicide. Two characters contemplate killing themselves, and one is successful. There isn’t a whole ton of discussion about the circumstances of it, but French probably did that intentionally to show how there is never a concrete reason for it. She focuses on the aftermath and how it tore apart the family, and then shows how that saves the other character’s life. She seems to think that there is always something to live for, even if it isn’t apparent at the time.

-Do murder victims get what’s coming to them? Or can bad things happen to good people? These are the views of Scorcher and Richie, respectively. This is another one that I don’t have the answer to. French seems to think that both of them are right, murder victims do get what’s coming to them, but the circumstances of that can result from bad things happening to good people. Like everything else, there is no clear answer.

As you can tell, this book is loaded. Despite all of that though, the case is still fascinating, and the characters are well-written. The book manages to stay cohesive as a whole while raising all of these separate problems and issues. It seems to be a recurring theme in her novels that the case relates to a past event in the detective’s life that then destroys them. Which is getting a little old, to be honest, but there’s enough change up with the circumstances and the characters that it’s not that bad. Yet.