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A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR * A gripping literary page-turner from a rising Irish talent in which former friends, estranged for twenty years, reckon with the terrifying events of the summer that changed their lives. "[A] gritty heartbreaker of a thriller...a spectacular read for Donna Tartt and Tana French fans."--Kirkus "A master class in building suspense...Walsh manages a deft balance between adolescent angst and ecstasy -- discoveries bringing horror, sorrow and joy -- and the more deliberate, often elegiac reflections of adulthood, reckoning with the promises of the past."--The Washington Post In the seaside town of Kinlough, on Ireland's west coast, three old friends are thrown together for the first time in years. They--Helen, Joe, and Mush--were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group's white-hot center. Soon after that summer's peak, Kala disappeared without a trace. Now it's fifteen years later: Helen has reluctantly returned to Ireland for her father's wedding; Joe is a world-famous musician, newly back in town; and Mush has never left, too scared to venture beyond the counter of his mother's café. But human remains have been discovered in the woods. Two more girls have gone missing. And as past and present begin to collide, the estranged friends are forced to confront their own complicity in the events that led to Kala's disappearance. Against the backdrop of a town suffocating on its own secrets, in a story that builds from a smolder to a stunning climax, Kala brilliantly examines the sometimes brutal costs of belonging, as well as the battle in the human heart between vengeance and forgiveness, despair and redemption.… (more)
User reviews
For roughly the first half of the book though I felt no interest in solving the crime at all. The prose was pretty, but it had no energy or excitement even when things happened that should have been heart-poundingly exciting. It was the prose equivalent of a model. I am not looking for a lot of action in my reading, fully half of what I read and love could reasonably be summed up as stories where nothing much really happens. Still, there has to be something that pulls me in, compelling characters, fraught interactions, or insights gained. In this book I think they were looking for that third option, insights gained, to carry the day. Sadly, the epiphanies and observations offered (and there are many of them) are nearly all stunningly banal. At their best, the awakenings would be meaningful if the characters were 20, but these characters are just shy of 40. The cast here appears to be short on insight, particularly with respect to themselves.
In the second half, the focus shifts to the action side of the story, and it picks up considerably. The story is bloody, violent, complicated, and surprising. I actually started to really enjoy the book as it moved toward resolution. That last half was a solid 4, the first half a low 2, so a 3.
So, a brief shufty from the Guardian review, now that I’ve found it:
It’s set in 2018 in Kinlough, on the west coast of
So far, so formulaic, but I read and the voices of the three characters move back and forth skilfully unspooling the story between 2018, when Helen and Joe return to Kinlough and a body is discovered, and 2003, slowly revealing the build up to Kala’s disappearance.
Two thirds of the way through and I am thinking that this is slack; well written but the story is only interesting because the author is frustratingly withholding information, drip, drip dripping the events leading up to Kala’s disappearance shortly after Halloween in 2003. And fair enough, mystery stories and thrillers always hold back details, but this feels too calculated and manipulative, and too implausible. This may be because the descriptive writing style with multiple narrators interrupts the flow of the thriller story.
So, I’m frustrated that the book, although well written, isn’t tighter than it is. It’s trying hard to be a thriller, but it’s too predictable
Fifteen years ago, a group of six teenagers formed a close friendship. Then one of them disappeared. The circle fractured and the reverberations of the disappearance are still being felt. It was tricky, at first, to keep track of all the characters and their familes (there is a handy list at the front of the book, to which I referred back a lot), but once that was worked out in my head, I settled into this taut narrative, told through multiple points of view. The ending got a bit convoluted but still a worthy read.
4.25 stars
TW/CW for some animal abuse and graphic violence.