With “The Searcher,” her eighth book, French is venturing into a new genre. It is her first book set outside Dublin and her first to feature an American protagonist - a gruff, retired Chicago police officer named Cal Hooper, who hopes to find peace and quiet in an idyllic Irish village (spoiler: He doesn’t). “The Searcher” unfolds in a rough, wild landscape where farmers and locals know every bit of each other’s business and are suspicious of outsiders. After writing six mysteries in her “Dublin Murder Squad” series, featuring a cohort of detectives, French has been experimenting with stand-alone novels.

Her new novel, “The Searcher,” from Viking, departs from her earlier work. “Pandemically speaking, my timing was pretty good,” said French, who has flaming-red hair, wide-set hazel eyes and a striking energy level despite the late hour in Ireland.ĭetails: Ticketed event with purchase of 'The Searcher' from Murder by the Book “It’s all used up by dealing with what’s going on around us and trying to process it.”įortunately for her millions of fans, French finished a book at the end of February, before the world and her subconscious shut down. “I’ve realized how much of this gig is your subconscious, and my subconscious, like everybody else’s in the world, is a smoking crater right now,” she said during a video interview from her home in Dublin, where she has been in varying degrees of lockdown with her husband and two daughters. She’s too anxious about the state of the world. In the past 13 years, she has published seven novels that won over millions of fans with their twisty, nuanced plots.īut for the past few months, French has been struggling to write. (Paulo Nunes dos Santos/The New York Times) Photo: PAULO NUNES DOS SANTOS, STR / NYTĮver since she released her debut novel, “In the Woods,” Tana French has drawn such a devoted following that it borders on cultish. The beloved crime novelist has written a Western-inflected mystery with her first American protagonist and a back story that touches on police violence and systemic racism.

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