The Hunter, French - B+

                    Cal Hooper, a former Chicago PD detective, has nicely settled into life in rural Ireland with a nearby lady friend, and a modest woodworking business with his apprentice, Trey Reddy.  Trey is the town's impoverished, wild, 15 year old teenage daughter who is growing up with help from Lena and Cal. Trey's con man of a dad makes a rare visit, and soon has roped a bunch of the farmers into a plan to swindle an Englishman he met in London. Cal believes there's more going on here than meets the eye, and Trey warily tries to sort out how to stop her dad from hurting her siblings and her mother. She learns that her dad and the Englishman are really in town to con the locals because her dad is seriously indebted to the Englishman. That requires her to weigh her desire to get back at the townspeople who killed her brother a few years ago against her disdain for her dad and his illegal plans. Cal sorts it out and tells Johnny Reddy to leave town. When Trey finds the Englishman dead one morning, both she and Cal are pretty tight lipped with the local detective, as is the entire town. Trey eventually blows her dad's cover and the locals convince him to leave town. Although the murderer is never uncovered, life returns to normal and everyone settles back into their way of life.

                    This is a truly excellent novel with moments of brilliance. The author excels at rural Irish dialogue and paints a picture of a small town's anxieties, and the communal groupthink that brings them all to a boilng point simultaneously. Really good.