By the third glance, he realizes that “you could look straight through three out of four houses, to bare rear windows and gray patches of sky.” The model neighborhood stands mostly empty, one of the many “big bets placed on the future” that foundered after the 2008 financial crisis. “At first glance,” the detective thinks, “Ocean View looked pretty tasty,” with “big detached houses that gave you something substantial for your money.” At second glance, he sees neglect in the overgrown grass. The surrounding development also suffers as it comes into focus. The floors are buckled with damp, the rooms are oddly proportioned and the walls are pocked with inexplicable holes. So durable is the image of the dream house that not even a nightmare can fully eclipse it.īut the house, like many a listing, appears to better advantage the less time one spends looking. Even in the kitchen, the detective can’t help but see double, noticing the highly desirable light from the floor-to-ceiling windows as well as the dark stain spreading across the tiles. Other than a bloody tableau in the kitchen, where the wife was found clinging to life and the husband lies dead, and the bedrooms where the children wait cold in their beds, the house is strangely immaculate, with not a speck of dust on the sleek, modern furniture, or a picture frame out of place on a mantelpiece. In the Irish mystery novel Broken Harbor, by the American expat writer Tana French, a detective arrives at the scene of a triple murder and steps into what feels like a real-estate ad.

Tana french broken harbor review