Staff Pick
Tana French scores another bullseye with her standalone novel The Witch Elm, an engrossing story about an Irish family who finds a skull in a tree in their garden. I'm a total sucker for this kind of story; it ticks all of my boxes, and even though I figured out "who did it" about 200 pages in, I could not stop myself from racing through it. A mix of police procedural, family loss, communal living, and functional disability — all bound up together in the patriarchal home passed down through generations — this is a tale of terror, hate, revenge, and murder. French can so perfectly render her characters, they feel alive. Examining themes of abuse, homophobia, memory, crime, and self-identity, The Witch Elm is a smart story of one family's implosion. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com