Two Disappointments:  The Witch Elm by Tana French and Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

I am always excited when I see that a favorite author has a new book out and I rush to amazon because, of course, I need to have it now.  I’ve read everything by Irish writer Tana French and Australian Liane Moriarty, and was therefore anxious for their new offerings, The Witch Elmand Nine Perfect Strangers.  Alas, dear reader, they were both disappointments.

French’s excellent Dublin murder squad novels established her as both a talented writer of mysteries and a skilled crafter of characters, so it was with anticipation that I came to her newest work, a stand-alone story.  Alas, she should stick to what she does best. I have several complaints, the most significant being that nothing much happens.  The first 150 pages could easily have been edited down to a few.  Protagonist Toby is a 20-something with a beautiful girlfriend, several good mates with whom he shares a regular pint at the local pub, and an interesting enough job doing PR for an art gallery.  Two things happen to Toby in the first 150 pages, one of which matters not at all and the other of which is a plot device to get him to the main story, which is his convalescence after a brutal attack in a robbery gone wrong.  Toby goes to stay with his uncle Hugo at Ivy House, the site of weekly family gatherings and where Toby and his cousins, Susanna and Leon, spent summers.  Hugo is dying of cancer and Toby’s decision to stay with him works to both their advantages.  Nothing much happens for a while until Susanna’s children are sent by Hugo to “find treasure in the garden” in order to get them out of the adult’s hair.  The children uncover a human skull in the old wych elm and it is here that the story takes off. . .at a snail’s pace.  The police are brought in and the rest of the skeleton, belonging to an adolescent friend of the cousins, is discovered.

It seems like French is going for a psychological thriller as much as anything else.  Toby’s memory issues from the attack seemingly prevent him from remembering the young man despite the insistence of the cousins that they all knew him.  The reader begins to question the reliability of our narrator as his thoughts about the skeleton and his patchy memory become increasingly alarming.  In the end, we find out what happened and why in a few brief pages – a conversation in which all is revealed to Toby – which seems a cheap way to wrap it up.  There’s not the usual catharsis provided by the gradual solving of a mystery, leaving the reader disappointed.

In Moriarty’s novel, nine strangers descend on a remote health resort for a ten day stay, coming for various reasons – weight loss, marital counseling, getting over grief.  Moriarty rotates the point of view by chapter between these characters and the three people who run the spa, Masha, the owner, and her two assistants, Delilah and Yao, who is medically trained. Frances Welty, a formerly best-selling romance novelist gets more page time than others and emerges as the central character, unlike the author’s previous books in which several characters share center stage (ThinkBig, Little Lies).  The result is that we see the others through Frances’ eyes with only glimpses of their perspectives, making many of them two-dimensional.  Most of the guests are taken aback at the spa’s procedures – daily smoothies, no alcohol or electronics, strict personalized diets and the first five days are “the noble silence” during which no one is permitted to speak or make eye contact. Multiple guests are soon second-guessing their choice of this particular “resort.”    Much of the book is the emerging backstories of the various spa-goers who initially bond over their common dismay at the place but later are forced into a collaborative life and death problem-solving situation when (SPOILER ALERT)Masha turns out to be a crazy and fiendish cartoon character. (Who remembers Boris and Natasha?) This turn of events, perhaps Moriarty’s trademark “secret that is revealed well into the book”, is the most disappointing aspect of the novel.  It just becomes silly and unbelievable.  I guess every author is allowed a dud; this is hers.