The Witch Elm
By Tana French
Genres : Suspense, Murder mystery, Drama, 2021-read, detectives.
Rating : 5/5
I enjoyed the unraveling of the plot. The mind bending and chilling conversations between the detectives and Toby are thoroughly enjoyable. The story is a cat and mouse chase - with detectives trying to piece together a murder mystery, a burglary that almost left the victim dead - shrouded in a lot of family and emotional drama.
It starts with Toby, the narrator and protagonist calling himself lucky and ends with him accepting the fact that he is lucky with grace.
Toby is working as a PR guy in an art gallery. He gets involved in painting forgeries with his colleague and when his boss finds it out, Toby gets few days of suspension while the other gets laid off. After Toby gets back to work and smooth talks himself into the graces of his boss, one night while he is asleep in his apartment, a couple of burglars break in and beat him up badly. He becomes a broken man with a shattered memory, limping body and a mind that's wavering constantly on edge. His cousin suggests he spend his time in their childhood reclusive home - Ivy house - where their uncle is spending his last days. His uncle Hugo is diagnosed with brain cancer and has barely a few months left. After much tarrying, Toby moves into the ivy house with his girlfriend Melissa and uncle Hugo. A skeleton gets dug up in a hole in a witch elm tree in the garden of the house by accident and a murder mystery lands on their hands. A friend of Toby from college is the one whose skeletel remains they are. Toby becomes the prime suspect. The noose starts tightening around his neck as his cousins make subtle insinuations against him and his hazy memory can't pull out any clear picture of what might have happened ten years ago. The story keeps going..loading us with new twists .. so has Toby been the murderer? Has the burglary been a random event or a planned one by some rival? How does Toby get out of the murder investigation without landing in jail? Or has he ended up in jail? He pays a big price in the process of saving others who wouldn't have thought twice to put his future and life on the line.
A very intriguing story. I like Tana French's writing and thinking style which is holistic and very smart, immersive. I couldn't put down the book. A wonderful read albeit a tad lengthy one.
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