The Witch Elm

Everything in Toby Hennessy’s life came easily, as if served on a silver platter. Why worry, when you’re a good-looking, well-off young man with loving parents and a fashionable job? One single unfortunate day shatters his cozy, seemingly protected world to the ground. Two robbers beat Toby half to death in his own home. Now he’s unrecognizable: lame, frightened, with gaps in his memory and unable to finish even a simple sentence. When the police find a skull in the hollow of an old elm tree in the yard of the family house with ivy, Toby becomes the first suspect. And the most alarming part is that he himself no longer knows who he is and what he is capable of… Maybe his entire previous life was a lie?

As always, Tana French weaves a plot masterfully, and the gripping detective story turns into a subtle psychological tale about loss and finding oneself.