After weeks or months of reading nothing but formulaic genre fiction—some of it quite entertaining but none of it particularly special—I forgot what it’s like to suck up some genuine literary prose. While reading The Hunter, I was reminded that Tana French’s characters are so immediate and solid that they jump off the page at you—their physicality, their mannerisms, their patterns of speech, their inner thoughts, all draw such a finely tuned picture of who they are that you are right there inhabiting the story alongside them. And not just the characters, but the setting, the look and feel of the natural world she portrays, lets you perceive the particular texture of the dirt under your bare feet and the golden-green hills silhouetted against the horizon.

The Hunter is the second of her books set in the village of Ardnakelty in the west of Ireland and centered around the American transplant, Cal Hooper, and the local teenager, Trey Reddy, with whom he has bonded. And as with its predecessor (The Searcher), French is telling a story that, while it has a mystery of sorts at its heart, is more a tale of people, of community, of life-changing choices.

In the first book, Hooper, a former Chicago detective, had recently moved to this small community and started making it his home, although he will always be an outsider to its provincial inhabitants. But it’s now two years on, and Cal has settled more deeply into his role as a citizen of Ardnakelty, in a relationship with local woman Lena and still serving as a foster father of sorts to Trey Reddy. He and Trey have built up a nicely profitable woodworking business, repairing old and building new furniture for the locals, and their future seems like clear sailing until Trey’s wayward father Johnny shows up, bringing along an Englishman whose ostensible purpose is the exploration of his Irish roots. But Johnny Reddy is an opportunist bent on exploiting the easy advantage, and his scheme to find gold in the townland sets everyone at odds and leads Trey astray as she tries to cope with the fallout from her father’s return.

Johnny Reddy has always struck Cal as a type he’s encountered before: the guy who operates by sauntering into a new place, announcing himself as whatever seems likely to come in handy, and seeing how much he can get out of that costume before it wears too thin to cover him up any longer.

Trey, two years older, has neither forgiven nor forgotten the unidentified villagers’ role in the disappearance of her brother, Brendan, and thoughts of revenge smolder close under the surface of her thoughts. Johnny’s scheming and double-dealing with the tourist Englishman and the participation of the men of Ardnakelty give her what she sees as the perfect opportunity to get back at them, but there are events, intentions, and emotional currents she’s too young and too fixated on her goal to suss out for herself. It’s left to Cal and Lena to help her walk a perilously narrow path without falling off an unanticipated cliff.

In my review of the first book, I called it subtle, lovely, and special, and this continuation is no less nuanced and intriguing. But you have to be able to sufficiently immerse yourself in that subtlety in order to appreciate it. French’s books always get radically opposite reviews from readers, with some lauding their slow burn, intricate plots, and gorgeous prose while others liken reading them to watching paint dry! I am obviously of the former opinion, loving every small shift of expression and change of attitude and tone by each character and holding my breath to see which way the wind will blow next. You will have to decide for yourself where you land. But if you enjoy the work of such writers as Donna Tartt, Kate Morton, and Diane Setterfield, give this book (and its predecessor) a try. There are rumors of a third book to round this out into a trilogy, and I say, Bring it on!