Tana French’s new novel features the type of flawed-but-honorable protagonist that made her Dublin Murder Squad series such compulsive listening. Most reviewers seemed to love The Witch Elm (2018), but I found its smug, self-satisfied scam-merchant lead so unpleasant I couldn’t have cared less what physical and mental torments the author put him through. Thank heaven (and French), Cal Hooper is made of sterner stuff. An unhappily divorced, recently retired Chicago cop, he’s chosen to spend his middle years (and maybe more) in a ramshackle cottage in an Irish village just far enough away from the hustle of Dublin to maintain an aura of peace and tranquility. He’s beginning what seems like a lifelong task of fixing up his new digs when a 13-year-old kid named Trey drops by to push the reluctant ex-cop into finding an older brother who’s gone missing. French’s long suits are depth of character, location, and atmosphere, all of which are here in abundance. While word-painting the bucolic and pub scenes so specifically you can all but smell the clover and the brew, she carefully drops bits and pieces of the two main characters’ backstories until we discover why Cal gave up his job and the Windy City and why the kid so desperately needs to know big brother’s fate. As for the compelling plot, there’s a shocking surprise I can almost guarantee you won’t see coming (partially because of the author’s misinformation), several brilliant examples of how to interrogate without the other party knowing, and an overall sense of realism that, even with strings left unattached, makes for a fully satisfactory conclusion. Assisting the prose, narrator Clark uses his gruff baritone to complete Cal on his tough, dogged, but reasonable search for the missing bro. He also easily finds acceptable brogues for young Trey, town leader Mart who happens to be Cal’s neighbor, assorted pub habitués, a town weasel named Donie McGrath, and an efficient and extremely agreeable Irish lass who could easily become part of Cal’s future. The audio is, to use its characters’ most popular self-description, “grand.”