![]() ![]() Then Susanna’s young son finds a skull beneath the wych elm. Toby and his cousins Leon and Susanna spent idyllic times in the four-story home as kids and teens, running wild in the large, unkempt garden, and a sense of sanctuary remains. His family suggests he move in with his Uncle Hugo, a genealogist recently diagnosed with brain cancer, and so Toby and his supportive girlfriend Melissa arrive at Ivy House. ![]() ![]() Doctors tell him he’s lucky to be alive, but all Toby sees are the gaps in his memory, the slight slur in his speech, the difficulty in concentrating. ![]() Toby is a 28-year-old public relations exec who has always thought of himself as a lucky fellow until a brutal attack in his home fractures his skull and his sense of self. Having written six layered police procedurals featuring the Dublin Murder Squad, French now switches the perspective from police to crime victim. That the skeleton isn’t discovered until a third of the way through the 500-page novel testifies to French’s talent at immersing readers in mysteries that go beyond those of old bones. Who is it? How long has it been there? And what does it have to do with Toby, the nice-guy narrator of Tana French’s intricate and beguiling stand-alone mystery, “The Witch Elm”? But there’s an actual skeleton in the trunk of an old wych elm tree at the Hennessey family home in Dublin. Most people who talk of skeletons in family trees are speaking metaphorically. ![]()
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