The Witch Elm by Tana French

Tana French is a favourite of mine, ever since I read her first book, In the Woods. It was a detective story, but rather spooky. I have also read Broken Harbour and, recently, The Secret Place.  The Witch Elm is an intricate story, full of psychological turns. 

"Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who's dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life: he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden - and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.

The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are."

French varies her books to follow either detectives or private persons. Here, the story develops from a private point of view.  Toby is a happy, social and care free young man whose life has been on the brighter side. This changes when he is attacked by burglars. He is loosing all his self confidence, has anxiety attacks, memory loss and hides away from people. Coming back to his childhood summer house to take care of his uncle and recuperate, he has time to reflect on his life. When a skull is found in the old elm tree, his life takes another turn. 

As the investigation/murder case is ongoing he struggles with memory loss. Talking to the close knit family and especially his cousins he is trying to find out what happened ten years ago. Maybe he himself was guilty of a crime. But would he not remember anything of it? As he talks with his cousins he realises that his version of their childhood and teens is totally different from his cousins. How could he not have seen things coming. 

It is a rather long novel, but it is so skilfully built up by French, that it is impossible to know who did it until the very end. Maybe the story's point is not who did it, but how things in life will change. How we look at how we behaved when we were younger and how we behave now. As long as life treats us well, we just go on, but when something happens that totally through our protected life into turmoil, doubts and fear enter into our lives.

French is a master in taking ordinary lives and making them into something scaring and unreliable. Her most intricate and psychological thriller to date. Her stories stay with you long after you have finished the book.  The story takes so many turns and not much becomes clearer to the reader as you go along. And then of course, there is always a twist in the end.