When a young man, the girlfriend of the son of Ardnakelty’s local bigwig, is found dead in the river, rumors fly and simmering feuds rise to surface. Was it murder or suicide? Who would stand to benefit from her death, and who has the most to lose? Her death becomes a weapon — sometimes a blunt cudgel, sometimes a treacherous hidden blade — in a battle that threatens the town’s very existence.
The third of French’s Cal Hooper books, The Keeper builds on the characters and settings established in The Searcher and The Hunter. Having lived in Ardnakelty for about three years now, Cal Hooper no longer sees the village as an idyllic green paradise in Ireland’s west; he’s seen the violence and avarice that lurk just below the surface, and he’s learned how to navigate the complex and centuries old relationships that bind the village. He’s still an outsider, of course, but no longer the “blow in” he was when he first arrived, and he’s established strong relationships of his own with the widow Lena, the semi-feral teen Trey, and his sometimes cryptic neighbor Mart. And when Lena becomes entangled in Rachel’s death and the machinations of Tommy Moynihan, he finds himself forced to choose sides in the power struggle for the village’s future.
As in the first two books, it’s the dialogue that makes “The Keeper” come alive. French’s characters crackle with life, and listening in on their conversations is one of the book’s great joys. Whether they’re teasing each other about their various idiosyncrasies or plotting a late night show of force at Tommy Moynihan’s front door, the characters’ voices ring true and propel the story.
And also as in the first two books, the story is not wrapped up in a neat and tidy bow; justice is served, but obliquely, and the characters’ lives are unsettled by the events that lead up to and follow from Rachel’s death. The “good guys” are all morally compromised to some extent, and the “bad guys” get away with a lot of misdeeds. And though the battle is won to save the town, it’s clear that the war — against demographic changes and economic tides and the course of time itself — is almost certainly going to have a much less sanguine outcome.
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