The Searchers by Tana French

 Tana French has written a complex exploration of human nature in her novel, The Searchers, in a very subtle way.  Set in a seemingly idyllic village in Ireland, we are invited to look at a wide array stereotypes.  We see the haves and the have nots, the do-goodness and the head in the sand types, and the old who cling to the past and the young who are determined to make it to a better life. We also see that each of these sets has their own moral code by which they live.  Enter into this mix the new comer (the outsider) and the mysterious disappearance of a young man, and the tension mounts.  The mystery is intense and well designed and the reader is drawn along toward the climax.  The protagonist, Cal, is a former detective who retired from service because he felt he could not work in an environment where the “rules” were so blurry that no one was really sure what was right or wrong anymore.  He is drawn reluctantly into solving the case of the missing young man and is once again forced to deal with the realization that there are no good answers to all situations.  There is no totally right answer in all things.  There are no completely innocent people.  French allows the reader to look at this moral dilemma from the safe distance of a mystery, yet we are forced to decide whether we accept the decisions made by the good people of this small town and the detective, Cal. This was really a deceivingly complex examination of humanity made to look like a mystery.  Our club gave this book 5 stars.  Very good read.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

 If you are unaware of the time in American history known as the Dust Bowl, you really need to read The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (or perhaps better yet, read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck).  Hannah, through the life of her protagonist, Elsa, gives a clear and desperate picture of the plight of farmers in the Midwest who lost everything due to the droughts of the late 1930s.  No rain, meant no crops and no crops meant the people were forced off the land as the banks foreclosed.  Thousands of these desperate people packed what they could and headed to California on the promise of plentiful jobs helping with the abundant harvests.  What they found when they arrived in this promised land was greedy and unethical farm owners who forced near slave labor onto the hapless migrants.  This book describes the life the migrants faced but more importantly, it forces the reader to look at the treatment these people received at the hands of the powerful land owners.  It is heartbreaking to view the total lack of humanity the workers dealt with and the way their lives devolved into chaos and poverty.  I must say that to me, this book was not up to the standard of Steinbeck, but others in my book club disagreed.  I think you cannot go wrong reading either of these books if you are unaware of the time period.  I truly believe we all need to force ourselves to be more aware of the plight of the underprivileged and the ugly truth that often their suffering could be alleviated or at least lessened by kindness and a helping hand.