Viking
Published March 31, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Some novels are described as “slow burns.” Tana French’s third (and final) book in the Cal Hooper series doesn’t seem to burn at all. The fires are all underground, deep in the peat, where they’ve been smoldering for decades. Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago cop who bought a tumble-down house on the outskirts of Ardnakelty, a small farming village in Ireland, is beginning to feel at home. The townsfolk have warmed to the stranger, and he’s able to swap stories with the men at a local pub. His relationship with Trey, a child from a troubled home who he has befriended and mentors, seems to be coping without outbursts of rage and even has made some friends. And he has grown closer to Lena, a woman who keeps herself aloof from the village but has become his close companion. That sense of peace and belonging is threatened when a young woman, engaged to the son of a local businessman, goes missing one night, only to be found drowned in the river shortly after she spoke to Lena, clearly struggling with something on her mind. Accident or suicide? Or did something more sinister lead to her death?