The Hunter

Well that was intense! I'd say 10% mystery, 90% interpersonal intrigue. I did miss the Trey and Cal spending time getting to know each other and the more frequent cheeky shit-talking amongst the Irish villagers featured in the first of the series. This second novel definitely feels more serious, higher stakes, and it bothered me a bit, even as gray morality did feature in that first book, that both Cal and Lena, but mostly Trey, went a lot farther outside their standard codes and behaviours than I previously thought those characters would. I liked how things resolved, but this was a much more stressful reading experience than I generally prefer. I'm honestly not sure if this will be a series, feels more like a duology, a lot of tight connections to the first plot, and I'm not sure how you'd keep having murder mysteries in a village this close knit and original in their solutions. I think I've established enough interest to check out French's other works, in any case. Probably going to take break between them, though.