The Searcher – Tana French – Episode 137

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1586869/episodes/18833659

The Buddies dive into Tana French’s “The Searcher”, a book that proves the worst midlife crisis decision isn’t buying a Ferrari, it’s moving to a shack in rural Ireland to escape your problems. This one had all the elements of a Western noir transplanted to the Irish countryside. The Buddies got into discussing a few topics around cookie-stealing neighbors , what phrases start fights (add “Sunny Jim” to the list), living by a code (Omar from The Wire style), and if you should automatically assume a character a figment of the main characters imagination in any thriller. So pour yourself a nice Irish whisky, practice your Irish brogue, and join the other Buddies who cozy up by the fire to read The Searcher. 

Intro/Book Report (0:00-3:36)

Stock Up/Down (3:37-30:17)

Favorite Scene/Character (30:18-35:27)

Love/Hate/Casting the Movie (35:28-43:06)

Conclusion (43:07-45:10) 

NEXT BOOK: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right, welcome buddy book look.
I’m Dylan here with the man that does all sorts of mad stuff on the Gargle Keith. What’s up buddy?
Pardon me?
It’s something that was said during… I think Mark said it when he was talking to me.
We read different books.
Gally’s talking to cows and mad stuff on the Gargle. I’m not going to do my Irish broke.
This is buddy book I’m going to break it down some bestsellers in this week.
We’ll be discussing The Searcher by Tara French.
It was a listener request or recommendation, whatever you want to say.
2020 book of the year by like NPR. I think it was NPR.
Oh really?
I don’t know that.
For someone, best book of 2020 New York Times NPR New York Post.
I don’t know if that means it was the best book, but hey, it says it on goodreads.
So that’s what I’m going with.
It was a nominee for readers favorite mystery and thriller also in 2020, but like I said, we’re the Bodebook Club.
I feel like to recommend a book for us to read and reach out to us in any past episodes or recommend books, like we said, like we just do in here.
Visit our website, Bodebook Club.com or sign up to our DMs on Instagram, Bodebook Club Podcast.
You can just just iTunes, Spotify, please download, subscribe, five star review, please, and thanks.
3.8 on goodreads.
Not honestly not a great goodread score. I don’t. I trust goodreads as much as I trust rotten tomatoes for the most part.
I feel like usually we’re in the fours. We’ve read four or fives that we thought were zeroes.
So we’ll talk about this one. I didn’t prepare a book report. I don’t know if you did.
Oh, I did.
Wonderful.
Yeah, I’ll give you the floor and step up to the front of class and please present.
Want to get away?
Not just a Southwest slogan, but the slogan of Cal Hooper, a retired police officer from Chicago, who packs up his stuff and flies to a small roll town in Ireland.
Cal Hooper not to be confused with Jim Hooper from Stranger Things.
What’s it quiet?
Oh, but when I appreciate it, but what’s a quiet life that is quickly interrupted when a strange 12 year old stumbles onto his property and he discovers he has the ability to control things with their mind.
Oh, wait, sorry, that’s a wrong story. A strange 12 year old stumbles onto his property to ask for help tracking down her last brother.
Cal leans into his investigative skills to start finding out answers.
And while doing so, he starts unearthing all the town secrets, but some secrets and bodies are better kept buried spoilers.
Also, just so it’s clear, Cal isn’t doing anything weird with this 12 year old in case you would immediately jump to that conclusion like everyone else in the town.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a well written Western or noir, but set in Ireland, we’ll jump on boards on each Jim.
Yeah, not bad.
I don’t know if everyone in the town thought he was. I think he was just mostly scared that everyone was weird that there was like everyone’s gonna think of being a 12 year old.
I was like, wait, what? What’s going on? I did nothing at all.
I guess he’s an out of towner or of the case and she’s like a latchkey kid or whatever the case is.
So it’s definitely has grooming potential.
A boy could do the same. So that’s when he was like, it’s a girl. Oh my god.
I was like, so.
Yeah, either way.
Either way, you hanging out with a 12 year old kid is not the least sketchy situation.
Well, I’ll give you a, I liked the stranger things. You get minus an entire grade for not knowing the actual name of that character.
So it’s a C plus.
Oh, okay. It was better than C plus honestly.
It would have been a B plus, but you went with Hooper and not Hopper or whatever. I can barely read sir.
You listen to the audiobook.
My first stock up, a good ol Irish broke, stock up.
Yeah.
So we obviously both listen to the audiobook here. I’m sure the novel reading it was enjoyable,
but it’s just so much better the audiobook version. I can only assume because it’s set in Ireland,
you need that person who has the Irish accent and he does all the different accents for different people, different dialects, which is impressive.
Like, Mart was almost un-un-understandable. He was so, so Irish.
Yeah, it just, it takes it to the next level. It’s, it’s like chocolate syrup on vanilla ice cream.
Just don’t, vanilla ice cream on its own. No one wants that unless you’re 12 or under and getting groomed by cat.
But, if you put some chocolate syrup on it, everyone’s like, yeah, I mean, I’m in for that.
And that was this book with the Irish accent, I thought.
Yeah, I mean, I’d agree, but I would use my analogy to be more caramel syrup and sprinkles, okay?
Jamies and maybe some like Reese’s pieces on there if we’re getting a little dangerous, a little little whipped cream also.
And now you’re just making a Sunday, you know?
Yeah, well, I mean, who says we’re not making a Sunday?
What do we do with that?
Obviously, Sunday is better. But if you, so if you had the choice, caramel sauce or chocolate syrup or whatever,
whatever, whatever, you want to, you want to call it, you’re going caramel, no matter what.
Yeah, no matter what.
Well, I think with caramel is that it can be, it’s very variable.
Like, I don’t like like, like, the Scotch taste or like, you know, butter Scotch tasting caramel.
Yeah.
Like, some of them are that.
So, if it’s the perfect caramel, yes, every time. That’s what I would say.
I made, I made a couple of jars of it recently. It’s so dangerous just sitting in the caramel.
What’s caramel?
Yeah, caramel sauce.
You heard my, a very, a very diner should have it on the side and you’re like, you know what?
I’m gonna start putting it on the side and just have it ready to go anytime.
It is a great idea.
It is a great idea.
Yeah, thank you.
I mean, at the same time, it’s legitimately sugar and heavy cream.
Like, it’s like, it’s so perfect.
It’s, it’s a heart attack.
Yeah, of course.
I’ve been starting to look because we get a, we get ice cream or big ice cream people, but the wife’s, the wife has been eating ice cream and I eat ice cream
a little bit, a little bit every night.
And so now I’m looking at the calories and the serving size big mistake.
All serving sizes are two thirds of a cup.
And if it’s a real ice cream, not that fake briar stuff, a serving size is like 230 calories for any kind of good ice cream.
And it’s two thirds of a cup.
So you’re having double that for sure.
So every night, I’m consuming like 500 calories of ice cream.
Which is wild to me.
Yeah, I mean, I use cancel that out.
That’s like, hey, I, you know, I walked up the, the stuff today.
That’s 500 right there canceled.
You’re good.
Yeah, it’s, that’s completely fine.
Either way, we’re talking about the signature here.
What did you have for stock up?
Stock up saying in this economy.
Oh, I mean, it’s not great out there.
Inflation is going up.
Gases to the moon right now.
I was sort of listening to the buddy book club, which is an amazing free content.
And it’s tough out there.
And that’s why in this book, there are some questionable decisions.
First, we got, Mark, your boy coming over every day, stealing cookies, talking his ear off.
Like, hey, but if you’re going to come over here and take the cookies, you need to bring something.
Your conversation skills aren’t what’s keeping me happy here.
You know, bring them to that whiskey, bring them to some Guinness’s, give me something here.
You can’t just come over and eat my cookies.
Well, you let them take a drab from the local, whatever that guy was making, the local hooch.
Yeah, that’s completely fine.
That’s kind of what we need. You scratch my back. I scratch your back.
Funny thing about my back.
This is funny. I was just thinking of, I had this for college.
I got an essay to tutor because my parents obviously rightly thought I wasn’t going to go to college without having something to tutor.
And he would come over and my mom would be like, oh, thanks so much.
Here’s like some cookies and she’d lie out like, you know, 12 cookies.
And like, you know, Oreo is never things.
And he’d be like, actually, I’ll take some of the channel chips also.
And he’d eat what?
Like 15 of these cookies in the one sitting.
And I just would, I don’t think I learned anything the whole time. I was just staring. I’m being like, how is this guy just demolishing cookies?
And also if I went into a new place and didn’t know anyone, I would eat one cookie as beautiful light.
But I would be nervous to get any more.
You was just like talking with his mouth full, ripping cookies.
We’re all jealous of those people though, right?
Yeah, because I’m the same way.
I’d be like, one, I’m not eating a cookie.
And I’m, if I have to use the bathroom, I’m holding it in.
There’s zero percent chance I’m going to go in these people’s bathroom.
And other people would just like eat 12 cookies and take a massive shit and not care.
And, yeah, those people are just so jealous of them.
Yeah.
The other thing I was going to say about in this economy is we have Trey who is by all accounts, like very, very poor, not eating meals at all.
She gets upset with Callins starts egging his house.
And this economy, you know what, you know what, a single egg in Ireland cost?
Probably I actually looked at it. That’s not that expensive.
But I assume it’s like a dollar an egg.
And like, that’s food, you know what I mean?
Whatever happens to like spitballs or toilet paper or something a little bit cheap.
I should throw a bit of space, but I mean, but anyway, she’s probably just going into farmer maggots crops and stealing the eggs.
Yeah, that’s true.
I mean, it’s still sunk cost or…
It’s still calories that you’re tossing at someone’s house.
Yeah, she could be eating those eggs.
So, but yeah, and this economy, questionable stock up.
Yeah, it’s a good point.
I do think that as far as the mart cookie situation is, like, Cal has to get in people’s good graces somehow.
You know, it’s like, you got to do something.
It’s just weird to go in and just get police start to vow.
I understand it from the host perspective to offer that, but to go in and just go ham is kind of crazy.
Or more just to expect it.
Like, oh, Cal, you went to the market today, right?
Where my cookie’s bitch?
Yeah.
It’s like, alright, give me a break, guy.
I’m like, stock up.
Having a few too many with the pals and taking all your clothes off, stock up.
Not a lot to do in this town here.
So, they all just go down to the local watering hole, at least, you know, all the older gentlemen and ladies.
And they go there and they get pissed and they just have a good time.
And that becomes their stories.
Like, it’s like, oh, let’s talk about, you know, this guy, O’Keefe over here, who got all naked and showed his penis to the neighbor down the street.
And that’s the story for the next 20 years.
And you guys just talk about it.
So, whenever you go and get pissed, that just becomes the next story.
And that’s how they entertain themselves.
So, you know, I’m not necessarily down with that into my advanced age.
But, at the same time, we still talk about those times.
And, yeah, I guess there’s something to just get pissed with your friends and make it a fool out of yourself.
Because that’s what they’re all looking for.
They’re just looking for you to make a fool out of yourself and how are they going to then exploit that.
So, yeah, respect.
Yeah, that’s universal, right?
I mean, when you get back together with your high school buddies and things like that,
you’re not actually going to talk about real things.
You’re going to be talking about the time in high school, and, you know, Johnny did something stupid, right?
Like, it’s not…
So, I think that’s just a universal thing that’s happening, right?
Yeah, I mean, we still…
We used to, in college, some…
If we stayed up till three or four in the morning, we’d say, “Hey, let’s rage until Wilson’s,
which was a diner down the street.”
And we don’t, you know, keep drinking until seven in the morning.
Oh, jeez.
And seven in the morning, okay.
And, you know, one time someone…
It wasn’t me, but someone drew a Charlie Chaplin mustache on one of our friends who was fast asleep.
And…
Charlie Chaplin, that’s who you’re going with.
And we get to the diner, and the diner owner is this Greek guy.
He was like, “Oh, you look like that Hitler guy to a friend of mine.”
And he was like, “What?”
And he was shook for the rest of the day.
He’s like, “Guys, this guy thinks I’m Hitler, which is hilarious as you’re looking at him with this Hitler mustache on.”
Yeah.
So, yeah, it’s, you know, and we still talk about it 20 years later.
So, there we are.
I like that Hitler guy.
You know what that is?
Exactly.
You kept saying that Hitler guy.
So, you look like that Hitler guy.
That’s great.
Great stuff.
It’s all our MacGee, good for you, buddy.
Do you have any other stockups?
A couple more names that start fights, Saka.
Okay.
We all know these names, Sport, Pal, Chief, Saga, and Buddy in the wrong context.
But it’s a stockup because we’re adding to the list here, Sunny Jim added to the list.
At first, I liked it when Mark was like, “Hey, Sunny Jim, let me tell you, let me see you down here and tell you what’s good.”
But by the end of this book, our mart is just fucking…
One more sunny Jim.
I was like, “Yeah, if he says this one more fucking time, Cal has got a murder.”
I was getting so pissed any time he said Sunny Jim.
It’s so condescending and so talking down to you.
Like, I’ll tell you how it is, kid.
I was getting so upset.
So, add that to the name of the list because at first, I liked it.
But, uh, not anymore.
And then the other thing I wanted to add, it was just Cal saying kid to a tray.
He might say kid more than I say kid, which I say a lot, so I appreciate that.
Yeah, the kid I felt like once it became clear, the big reveal that tray was Teresa.
I think the kid was away for the author to generalize the thing.
So, she would also, tray would never have a reason to correct Cal.
And it would never have been like, “Hey, son.”
Then say, “Right, right, right.”
I know, I’m a girl.
Uh, so I agree with you there, though.
And, sunny Jim, mart definitely towards the end was doing a lot of…
Let me explain to you how it is here, kind of thing.
And, which ties it with my next stock up, which is man’s slaughter, stock up.
So, the guy’s murder, Brendan Reddy.
It was an accidental murder and Brendan, to my understanding,
Brendan threw the first punch and then someone else knocked him out.
And on his way to the ground, hit a propane tank back of his head, died immediately.
That’s still murder, right?
That still checks out.
And, mart’s just kind of like, “Alright, Cal, stay out of it. You don’t get it.”
Shit happens when you’re party and this is the way it is, sunny Jim.
It didn’t seem like there was any remorse even necessarily from mart.
Even if he’s taking him up to see the bodies, like, “Oh, you really want to do this? Okay.”
Like, “Duh, duh, duh, duh.”
You want to get a drink afterwards?
It’s like, “Where about to uncover a dead body in a bog that someone has murdered?”
And you’re just like, “Well, he shouldn’t have brought the meth here.”
It was odd. Let’s just say.
And wasn’t it like the whiskey they were drinking? That little meth in it, right?
That sounded like that was different than whiskey, so…
Yeah, I don’t know what they’re…
Why are they yucking other people’s young?
Two drabs of this whiskey that they have and you’re seeing leprechauns,
but yet Brendan Reddy is just trying to cook up a quick meth batch
and he’s trying to break bad and it’s the biggest problem you’ve ever seen.
So…
Well, it was also just annoying because, like, Mark would be like,
We can’t have meth in here because it’s gonna ruin the whole town, it’s gonna do all this shit.
And it’s like, “Well, what about this trade, girl?”
That really needs a lot of help. He’s like, “Fuck, trade. I don’t give a shit about her.”
It’s like, “Well, you just said you want to protect everyone,
and it’s like, you see, you’re just doing it very self-righteous,
but with, you know, no actual way to help anyone else.
So, I don’t care for it.
Agreed.
Last one, quick one, guns stock up?
I mean, obviously the American, the right one he got to Ireland,
was like, “I need a gun.”
Yep, that checks out.
And it was all positive.
So, there’s no negatives for the guns, you know?
Like, “Trade gets her confidence up by shooting Call’s gun.”
I mean, I wanted to get a gun after that.
Yeah, the way he’s explaining that gun, I was like, “Yeah, I want that.”
It’s like, “This is what the Cowboys use in, wow, Wes is like, I like Westerns.”
Yeah, I know the gun you’re talking about.
I kind of had a BB gun like it. I want that.
Yeah, she helped save Call from a beating.
So, you, Wes, say, “Gun’s up.”
Yeah, I agree.
My last one was having a strained relationship with your daughter, stock up?
Not something, I mean.
Not necessarily.
Well, hold on, I’ll tell you why the stock’s up.
Okay, yeah, the stock is low.
I get it, no one wants the strained relationship with their daughter.
But, Call definitely has one.
The whole family situation, not ideal.
I think his wife left him, but they’re not yet divorced,
but she’s with someone else. Is that the case?
Or did it where they divorced?
I assume they’re divorced?
I don’t know.
I thought so too, but I felt like during when I read it, that was not the case.
Either way, they’re not together.
It doesn’t seem like him and Don are getting back together.
No.
And his daughter doesn’t really seem that interested in her dad’s life.
He’s always trying to call her, and she gives him the, “Oh, works been so busy right now,”
which is, unless you’re someone that’s legitimately, like a doctor in a war zone or something like that,
you have five minutes to call your dad, check in, “Hey, how’s it going, dad?
You doing good out there?”
Yeah.
Okay, cool. Here’s how my day was.
See you have a good night.
Boom, that’s it. That’s all you got to do.
So, that thing was a problem, but because of his strained relationship,
he needs that in his life. He needs that feeling of taking care of someone, especially a kid.
Maybe a second chance, even, because there was that whole thing with his daughter,
where she was assaulted on the street, and he went into, like, cop mode, as opposed to just being in dad mode.
And his whole thing was, “Well, I’ll find the guy that did it, and I’ll get justice for you,”
whatever the case is.
And she just needed someone there to hold her hand until there was going to be all right.
So, he tries for round two with, with Trey, and luckily,
another stock-up, I guess, misgendering.
You know, luckily, he misgenders her, because otherwise, if he knew from the jump,
then he probably would have never let her, you know, get that close.
But, and thanks to Trey for her, Shanato Connor haircut,
was able to keep him unknown to the situation.
But, yeah, so he was able to kind of recreate that relationship with Trey.
Although, the thing I didn’t really understand is I was like, “Oh, okay, cool.
So, now he’s going to do more of the dad thing,” which he kind of did, I guess, at the end.
But, primarily, he went back into cop mode when it was with Trey.
She’s like, “Oh, I need help with Brendan.”
And, yes, he eventually, like, takes care of her, and I’m sure, after the novel,
if, you know, I assume he sticks around and continues that relationship with her to help support her.
But, first, he kind of just went back into cop mode, and Trey eventually just fell into dad mode of it.
Well, one of my loves was I thought she was really, really good writing male characters.
I have the book, through the book I looked up, was like, “Wait, is this a woman that wrote this?”
This is kind of crazy, because she did a really good job, kind of getting you in Cal’s head,
and being like, “Oh, this is the way I think,” and you’re like, “Oh, I understand his perspective.
It’s definitely wrong, but I understand his perspective, at least, which I think makes this kind of a good,
I’m actually like a new war, so I was Western, where like, each character kind of has their flaws, obviously.
Yeah, he’s definitely a flawed hero.
And I understand what he was thinking.
He’s like, “What I’m best at is going and tracking down this person, and that will allow her,
my daughter to sleep at night, knowing this person’s off the street, they’re not gonna hurt another person.”
And so I understood what he was thinking, and I feel like eventually you think she would become mature enough,
or old enough, though, as she understands his perspective a little bit, and not a whole grudge.
I think he’s wrong, but like, at the same time, I think that it’s at least you can get step into his shoes and understand why he did it, right?
But I just thought it was really well written, especially for male characters.
I saw some reviews online that said they didn’t like, and there was a theme, a few of them said,
that they didn’t like the way she wrote male characters, and I’m with you.
I couldn’t disagree more.
I thought Cal was nuanced, and I thought it was just well done overall.
Yeah, I mean, he probably thought more than most men, but yeah.
Yeah, I mean, every night he’d have his beer on the back porch and look at the stars, and I was like, “Yeah, that part is…”
Other stars up there?
That part might be generic, but otherwise he was a fool.
Yeah, fully fleshed, fledged character.
Yeah, I thought he was good, for sure.
What about stockdowns? What do you have for stockdowns?
Stockdowns soothing stories.
So we just mentioned Cal. I think he’s actually a really good salesperson.
He would meet up with people, “I’m using his investigation work,” and he’d kind of read them really quickly, and then say,
Alright, this is how they think. I’m going to now change the angle of how I approach them in order to get the information I need.
That was really, really interesting way. It would work on me, but at the same time I hate salespeople, but he was kind of meeting you where you stay or stand, right?
Not just being the typical salesperson.
That is until he started doing storytelling.
Tray gets beat up, and he comes to the house, she’s all bruised, broke at ribs, this and that.
And who’s the girl that he’s kind of like almost dating or a little bit there?
Not Noreen, it’s Lena. Lena, right?
Yeah, and she’s like, “You got to stay here.”
So she’s the only person that finally commits, he doesn’t learn from his own daughter.
Like you were mentioning, he kind of would’ve done this exact same thing, but she’s like, “You got to stay and comfort her.”
And he’s like, “Alright, so he goes in the room and he’s like, kind of soothered.”
And he’s like, “You know what? Your situation reminds me of this beaten dog we’ve found the street.”
I was like, “Wait, what?”
He’s like, “Yeah, he’s just a crepe, pathetic dog beaten up abuse on the street.”
Yeah, we picked it up. It died two years later, but not from those wounds.
Good night. I was like, “Wait, what? That’s a story? What the hell?”
The soothing story, stuck down.
It was one of my loves, the way Cal changes his approach to interviewing people
when it comes to the Brennan Ready Disappearance.
And you said it so well, so I don’t even need to restate it.
But yeah, just really liked how depending on which person in their current situation he met them there
and then took a different interview tactic for them.
So once again, in terms of the writing, I thought she captured what it would be like
to be a police officer, detective, and have that capability to be able to do that
because it was obviously super copy without necessarily giving out a ton of cop vibes.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
My stock down is wokeness, stock down.
Okay, okay.
I’m more for Cal’s take here because Cal has real feelings on the subject
which I kind of came out of nowhere in the book.
And it was a conversation between Cal and Tray where, you know,
Cal’s more like Omar from the wire where he’s pretty much like every man’s got to have a code.
And his take was that as opposed to listening to people who tell you what’s immoral
and moral in the current climate, you should just follow your own compass to decide what’s right and wrong.
He’s like, you know, most people got there and they just know what words you can and can’t say
and they feel like they’re defending those people
because they’re making sure that other people don’t say those words.
But it has nothing to do with actions.
So he’s like someone’s, he was telling a story reason.
Someone was defending disabled people or something. He said, oh no, you can’t call them that.
You call them something else.
And he’s like, but at no point has that person helped someone in a wheelchair or whatever the case is.
Yeah. It was a good point, although, you know, you could argue back and forth about what the case is.
And it also is like, okay, well, if you have to have a code, what if your code is just wrong?
You know, what if your code?
He was also saying, if someone’s an asshole to you, you can punch them in the face.
But if they’re in a burning car about to become rotisserie, you got to pull them out of the car.
Which, okay, that’s cows code.
But at least you know where he stands when it comes to his code.
I do think that kind of rippled through the rest of the story with like some other stuff we were talking about, especially when
kills or the mart’s buddy, whoever accidentally killed Brendan Reddy and they don’t care.
Cow’s code is like, no, something should happen to you.
You know what I mean? Like, you can’t just get away with this Scott free.
Like if they went and helped the Reddies or something like that, I’m sure Cal would have felt at least a little better.
But continuing to ostracize the family and look down on them after you’ve murdered one of them is not to cows liking it.
And the mart ever patched their thing up.
But he kind of says like it’s too far gone at this point and you know, that’s probably the case.
Mark sucks. Yeah, I would never want to patch it up with him. Like that’s the worst.
So I’m taking my cookies, bud. How about that? That’s for, that’s the first transaggression.
You know what I mean?
All right, all right. So say you. So say you.
I agree with a lot of what Cal said, but at the same time, there’s also got to be some sort of like, you know,
it’s not just that black and white for most of this up. And you can also change your code. Like, you know, I mean, it’s not just like,
Oh, maybe I have to rethink the rethink things, you know, I mean, so that was the only thing I would say is, yeah, it’s,
if you start doing that, like, no, I have a code and no matter what it’s this, it’s like, well, now you’re really going to put yourself in a box where you can’t get out of sometimes.
Do you have any other stockdowns?
Last one, a big twist stockdown. I feel we’ve had this as a stockdown before, but I’m selling again.
We’ve read too many of these books that rely on like really big twists at the end.
And I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop because I think when I was reading this book, I was like, oh, shit, there’s going to be some really big twists coming here.
But I think this book was a much different. There’s more like a Western, like we mentioned in the war where it’s more kind of just like a sad story for
than it is like a, I mean, almost kind of reminds me of a Chromic McCarthy. You didn’t read the road, but I did.
Which is I was waiting for something in that story to happen. And it was just very sad, don’t I?
Or what I did think was going to happen was that tray wasn’t real. She was a figment of his imagination.
You and Shutter. All the time is thing. Yeah, it’s the old time though. Like no one else sees her and he keeps hiding her from everyone.
And I’m like, why is he doing this? It doesn’t make any sense.
Couldn’t you just be like, oh, yeah, like the guy and he thinks of the guy. But I guess that’s the reason why they did it.
So he wouldn’t say the boy down the road.
Yeah. Anyways, the guy, the boy on the road keeps coming to my house to and I’m like showing on the road, so whatever.
When do you like tell someone that wouldn’t it be weirder to not tell someone that right?
Yeah. Wouldn’t that make you seem creepier that you’re like hiding something?
Absolutely.
So that’s, I also thought it was weird when he kicks her out of the house.
He’s like, you’re just going to steal something from me. He’s trying to like let her down easy so that she doesn’t show up anymore.
No, you try to let her down hard so that she doesn’t come back.
Yeah.
Couldn’t you just tell her, hey, you can’t come around here at night.
You know, we can’t be seen together like in private. It’s fine if you want to come out and work outside and we’ll do all these things.
So the reception is an issue. It’s a real thing. Just talk to her one on one.
Yeah, I don’t even know what she did.
Yes, yes, but you can’t say, you know, we’ll work outside. There’s no one around.
Yeah, I guess them hiding it is way worse than…
Yeah, hiding it is always worse, but no one’s going to believe the truth.
Like so you got this trailer park girl coming here to help refinish a desk for you.
So yeah, she helps me do all jobs around the house. Oh, is she skilled in that? No, no, I’m schoolin’ her.
You know, he’s doing a nice thing, but you know, people don’t believe that. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is.
Granted, if it was my daughter, I wouldn’t let her do that shit either. You couldn’t mean no way.
That’s true. No, I got it.
But yeah, he went full on burn every bridge.
You come from a trash family and like you’re gonna steal some stuff from me.
So he went to like super-herder feelings in hopes that that would work and not the best.
But my next knockdown is midlife crisis, knockdown.
So obviously, Kale’s dealing with some shit, right?
His wife left him and he seemingly recently quit his career because of this Jeremiah Peyton situation
where he was on the beat with another cop and see they ran down this guy and the other cop pulled his gun
and almost shot this man or almost killed this man because he thought he was going for a gun
and he had like a knife heard of the case was, which still to me, I was like, well, he’s still had a knife, but I get it.
How’s it like me saying that? I was like, wait, what’s up with that?
Yeah, it’s not like, oh, you know, it was a baby and a carriage with a rattle, you know?
But because of that, he says like, what are we all doing?
Are we actually helping? Are we hurting? And he had a crisis of confidence and it didn’t want to do his job anymore.
Didn’t have the same lustre he used to have his wife. So what does he do?
Midlife crisis, does he buy a Ferrari or something like that? No.
He moves to a tiny little shack in a tiny little town in Ireland and the shack is her, the house, whatever the case is.
He’s not a house, whatever the case is. He needs a ton of work and he’s just going to lose himself in the work.
Not the most ideal midlife crisis. I just think he cut it down a little better.
So just in the way of midlife crisis is it’s a stock down because yeah, if you’re going to go go hookers and blow.
Do it like everyone else. Yeah, I agree with that.
Well, also he’s got, I didn’t really get it because he has a nice pension coming.
Years, you just sit on that. You don’t need to go to a shack in the middle. Go to Dublin, get out of the part, nice apartment above a pub and just go to the pub every night, listen to music.
That seems like a way better. What are we doing going off to fucking middle of no?
You can do that. You can go to Wyoming if you want to do. Why did you do to Ireland? Do you know what I mean?
If you go to Ireland, you got to do the positive route. You can’t go the completely negative way.
I don’t know. He needed an entire ocean between him and his problems.
What about favorite part or favorite storyline within it? I think there’s a really story lines kind of one storyline.
I honestly thought when Tre shoots the guy that are that are getting him like that whole them in the cabin scene because at that point we don’t really know is it the Dublin guys who are coming after them.
What is happening? Your house cowl going to get out of this because he feels like he can just like talk his way or you thought he was going to be like hopper in stranger things and sacrifice his life or whatever the case is for Tre.
You know, you really didn’t know. And I also thought there was some good moments in there with him and Tre and he was doing his comfort thing.
Well, also then doing his cop thing. So I like that. And then I also liked when he went to interrogate at you torture that shitty guy.
I don’t remember what his name was, but when he goes into his house and is like slamming his fingers in this desk drawer and stuff like that.
This is after the house stuff, but that’s that’s a no that’s like I’m all business cowl.
Yeah, so I I enjoyed that thoroughly as well.
Yeah, no, I agree with those. I think the one I was thinking of was we already mentioned a little bit, but when was it Lydia’s other name?
Lena.
Yeah, checksum. I like that scene because I think that was the one time where cows like I go by this principle.
I do this. This is how I act and he was about to go back into his same cycle and someone finally called him out on it.
And it’s like, no, fuck that. I’m not I’m not cleaning up your dirty work. He’s like, but I’m a cop. He’s like, I don’t give a shit.
Like that’s not like that’s not my problem is your problem. You got to stay here and deal with it, which no one’s told him the problem too is his daughter and wife.
Unfortunately, just haven’t told that to him to his face, which so he’s still is never going to learn.
He someone needs to like spell it out for him and this woman finally does, which is.
Yeah, it seemed like his wife had because anytime she’s T talk sir. She’s like, you’re doing the same stupid shit all over again, Cal.
Like, what is your problem? He’s like, I thought his wife is kind of being unnecessarily mean.
I get we don’t get a ton of backstory, but he’s like, hey, how’s our daughter doing it? I just want to make sure she’s okay. She’s like, call her.
Why don’t you figure it out? You can’t talk to about us about your daughter.
Every time I call her, she says I don’t have time to talk.
Exactly. Yeah. So I felt kind of I was like, why is she being so mean to it?
Yeah.
If he called me, he’s like, hey, I really want to figure out how we can get back together. What did I do wrong?
I get that she’s like, I’ve answered this hundred times, but she’s actively asking about something in the present.
A daughter you guys share together. It seems like you should maybe answer that question. I don’t know. Just me.
Yeah. What about your favorite character? There’s not that many in this one. We got Cal, Tray Ready, obviously.
Noreen, Lena, Mart. I mean, there’s a bunch of other random characters, but I figured you’re probably in there.
Yeah, I’ll stick with Lena, but then also I’ll throw in Tray, but angry Tray. I don’t know.
I thought it was just funny. Tray throwing Tray?
The first time she comes around and said, you’ll bring the doorbell, shake the hand. It’s get into a fight, fist fight with the dude sneak up on him.
I don’t know. There’s a I like that portion where she was where I thought she was a figment of his imagination. So yeah, both of those people.
Okay. I know you’re going to hate it, but I like Mark. I don’t necessarily like Mark.
I said, your boy has a joke, and I was right. I thought the character was well done because one, he’s got all the sangs.
He says crazy stuff all the time. When Tray, when Cal tells him that he has Tray ready over, Mart’s dying laughing, being like, Tray, ready is a girl.
And having the time of his life at Cal’s expense, he’s definitely not a super nice guy. And he’s a ballbuster and a accessory to murder.
But I was out of that. I had a good time.
I’m just glad he was there. I don’t like him. I don’t like a nosy, nelly coming by and a guy that’s talking down to you the whole time. I didn’t care for that at all.
Even if he didn’t murder anyone, I didn’t care for either of those characteristics.
He did seem like a good guy when it came to his brother who I guess he didn’t know was gay and then left because of it.
And then he tried to find him and he couldn’t find him. He did all the work to try to find his brother. And I think he really misses him and that was kind of sad to me.
He did a couple online searches. He was like, yeah, 20 years later, I did an online search. Another thing. So that was that.
He did not have a profile picture. So probably was.
That’s a perfect, perfect microcosm of him as a person. He’s all this talk. Oh, I want to make the town better on the town. Oh, ready? Yeah, fuck that chick. I don’t care about her at all. I don’t care about any of the poor people in this town. I’ll create the kids in this town. Honestly.
I’m not doing anything for the community. Kyle moves in and he’s already helping out the youth here. Your boy’s been standing there the whole time. It’s done shit. He just all talk. So yeah, I hate that kind of character.
Okay, yeah, you’re not wrong. You’re not wrong. What about love? Hey, loves. I guess for loves the murder mystery. I feel like you’re feeling positively bad.
That has to be a big thing with this book with fans because they call it a thriller. This definitely isn’t a thriller.
At no point was I thrilled. I wasn’t necessarily looking for that. And I feel we’ve done that. We’ve been there. We’ve done that.
They’re rarely that interesting. There’s red herrings everywhere. This was more like you said, it was more just tragic.
The whole thing with Brendan was just like a terrible tragedy that didn’t need to happen. He was a smart kid who was just trying to make his own way and get out of this town.
And he made some dumb mistakes that teenage kids make and it cost him his life, which was just shitty. And the whole time when you’re reading it, you’re kind of waiting for, oh, there’s going to be this big twist.
Which isn’t necessarily what I was looking for, but I was almost the other way around. I was like, how is she going to fuck up this story by putting in this twist that I don’t need.
And I personally thought it was a great ending for the way this story was. And kind of just like the setting itself is a sleepy town.
We don’t need epic murders or something like that. It’s just a shitty thing that happened.
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think if they went the twist right on this, I think it would have really taken away from the, it’s kind of like a character study on most in a book that’s more about other themes.
If you now make it a twist book, it kind of maybe kind of lessons, those are the things that they were added into the book. So yeah, I agree.
Yeah, the questions were there too in terms of, oh, there’s all this stuff about the Dublin guys. It’s that one idiot who is in town.
Like was he involved or any of his buddies involved? Like there was enough there, but I didn’t need a big payoff.
So I was fine with it. What about the slow burn of the book? It was definitely never caught fire at all. You know, in terms of it was never a roaring fire even at the twist, so called.
Yeah, this was not a, it’s not a beatry. This is a cozy up by the fire with a blanket read.
Yes, that’s exactly what I had as well. I read some of this book or listen to it when we had a big storm here in Massachusetts.
And we didn’t have power for like four days. And so I’m like listening to this book. And my living room, in one of the cases, it was like, you know what?
Like this is the perfect setting for this is a winter, this is a winter book where you’re just, you know, you don’t need the epic twists and turns and you’re just there along for this cozy train ride kind of thing.
So you’re okay with it.
Yeah, I mean, I’m I hate I said I had ending obviously was a bit unsatisfying. So I do think that I mean just as someone that is kind of tends to like more of the revenge story or like closure story.
This didn’t necessarily have that. I don’t think you know, we kind of just have like trays like, alright, my brother’s dead. Now you can’t investigate or do anything after it because I figured it out. It’s like, alright, I guess.
I guess that’s the end of the story. It is kind of depressing, right? So I think it was original is different vibes. And I think that’s good. Once and while if I read ten of these books, I would hate it.
I wouldn’t you know, I mean, I would definitely start to grind my gears a bit.
Yeah, it’s a good point. I think it also helps because we haven’t read a book like this in a very long time. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. And we’ve had more terrible thrillers on here than we’ve had probably any other book besides fantasy books. So I’m glad that we got something that was such a change of pace. And because of that, I think I’d like to more because it was such a change of pace.
What else what else do you love?
American is apple pie. There’s a certain apple pie, the diner, which I thought I was not ready for that. I didn’t know that was a thing. So I like that. Yeah.
It’s crazy believe that in other countries they have apples and they make pies out of them. You know the fucking saying, sir. How dare you?
American is apple pie. I thought it was that was an American thing. I didn’t think that was like a delicacy or you were maybe even served as a pie in other places.
I could see like an apple turn over being somewhere else.
I think throwing a piece of cheddar on top of it is an American thing. You just saw that from that one. Thank you for smoking. Get out. I never see that movie. Oh, you have it. No. Yeah.
It’s good. Take it back. I liked it. It’s about argument, which obviously like argue. So yeah. Yeah. No, I have. I just know that in the Midwest, it’s like, you know, you have a piece of cheddar on your.
Oh, I never I didn’t know that was a thing. No, that was the first time I ever saw that. I never I never had an American pie with cheese on it.
I like you’re gonna call it apple pie more. Yeah, American pie. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, there we go. And I already mentioned I think it was core Mac for Carthie Vibes.
It turns out she is American, but she just she’s lived in Ireland for a long time. So wondering how she was writing such a well told American version as an Irish person, but it’s.
I get that she has the perspective of both because she’s. Yeah, I didn’t look look up besides that she had red hair. So I just assumed she was Irish pictures.
You know, profiling for sure. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I didn’t really have many hates. Maybe just this book maybe hit me at the right time.
Not that it’s a perfect book by any means, but maybe just hit me at the right time where I was in need of something like this to slow down.
We were kind of in a fantasy and thriller. And I used to roll with quotes.
And I needed to read something different and feel good about it. You know, we’ve done other books that I love that are not in there. You know, seven husbands of evil and you go, we really loved and trying to think about the other one.
Oh, the one with the kid on the drugs that we did fairly recently.
Colors the dark colors the dark that was called the thrill of that one was good. That’s like the other one. We ran right to that. The West Virginia one that one was all. Yeah, that one.
Extra derly depressing. Yeah, that one you’ve been like, but I like it either way. We were I was kind of in the need for it. So I didn’t necessarily have any hates. Yeah, it was a bit slow for sure.
You know, I think if you took this to the beach and you were reading it in the front of the sun, you’d probably put it down every few pages at the beginning just to get a dip in the water.
But yeah, eventually, you know, once you get really involved with the characters, I think it makes up for itself cast the movie. I don’t know. You could have hopper for Calhooper, right?
Yeah, I did a Jeremy runner always plays the same role as like dad that’s kind of not there in the picture, but kind of a cop. Yeah, for for Marta did Brendan Gleason got to get us an Irish guy. Yeah, yeah, just get Brendan Gleason and Colin Farrell back together.
And this will be the sequel to being cheese of your share and perfect. They have another one before that in Bruce. Yeah, it’s a good book. I make it. It’s a good movie. Not book.
I watched the movie. I think I was not. I did not know that was like, it’s a weird.
Super weird. Super. Yeah, I did not understand it the whole time. I was like, wait, is this supposed to be funny or is this supposed to be like, what’s going on?
Yeah, it’s definitely a weird movie, but it’s one of those that you remember because it’s weird and it wasn’t bad.
You know, it was like, oh, someone really swung for it, which I appreciate as well. And it wasn’t like swung for it and was terrible like battlefield earthers.
I don’t like that. All right, Keith. That was the searcher. Thanks for whoever recommended it. Appreciate you. I’m glad we read it.
What do you give it out of five and who’s the four? I give it three point seven five out of five. I thought it was very, very solid. I think that’s
I wouldn’t go on my way to recommend it, but I liked it. I liked a lot. Yeah, this is something like I tell my mom about and she’d be jazzed to read it.
It was really good. I gave it three points seven five as well. So we’re in lockstep. Yes. Yeah, it’s for anyone who just wants to change a pace. There says, you know what?
I’ve been reading all these terrible thrillers. And I just want something that feels a little bit more realistic. Yeah, yeah, down the earth.
Read this then. Yeah, but it is a cozy winter read for sure for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, that is the searcher Keith. What do we got going next?
We got me talk pretty one day by David Starris. I’ve seen this book and David Starris in particular referenced a bunch by comedian. So I was like, I want to see I want to read a funnier book. So we’re I think both of us are done with it already.
Yeah, it’s pretty quick one, but we’ll get into that next. And you had you weren’t familiar with David Starris before this like outside of the references. No, yeah. So it’s I think I’m sure I’ve seen him on like a late night talk show.
Or I’m sure it seemed something he’s written before, but yeah, I’ve never read one of his books. Yeah, maybe letterman or something back in the day. I’m sure you probably seen a sister to Amy Sederra. She was like in kids in the hall and stuff like that.
Yeah, I looked at up after and I was like, Oh, I didn’t realize that. Yeah, they’re the same family. I guess I’m sure I’ve brushed brushed on like I’ve the name was very familiar to me. So I wasn’t like it was like brand new.
Yeah, well, we’re keeping it keeping alive going through some other genres or whatnot that we haven’t done, which which I appreciate before we get back into our things. So yeah, we’ll like he said we both finish it. So we’ll have that coming up pretty soon.
Let’s go to another episode.
All right. Well, thanks for thank your chat. And I’ll catch you for me talk pretty one day. All right. Bye now.
Bye now.