Family Murders, Family Pains

Jim Napier’s review of Broken Harbor (Viking), Tana French’s “compelling tale about the horrific multiple-murder of a family in rural Ireland,” was posted this morning in January Magazine. He offers this synopsis of the main crime at hand:

In a coastal housing estate of half-vacant, jerry-built homes an hour’s drive north from Dublin, a grisly crime has been unearthed: Patrick Spain and his two young children have been brutally stabbed to death. Spain’s wife, the sole surviving member of their immediate family, has been left in critical condition, stabbed multiple times and now barely clinging to life. The bodies of the children show no signs of a struggle; they seem to have been murdered in their beds while they slept.

Pat Spain had been unemployed for months, a victim of the recession that has swept across Ireland. Although he was forced to give up his family’s expensive car, he somehow found the money to stage an elaborate birthday party for his daughter. Everything in this murder investigation points to a family member being responsible, and since he was on the verge of poverty and trying desperately to maintain an image of middle-class respectability, the father is the odds-on favorite for the crimes.

You’ll find the complete critique here.