Recap, Summary + Review: The Hunter by Tana French

Two-paragraph summary: Trey’s disreputable and long-absent father Johnny comes back to their small mountainside Irish town with a get-rich-quick-scheme. Cal is a retired police detective who has been caring for Trey in Johnny’s absence and knows it means trouble. Johnny gets the townspeople to invest in trying to convince a rich Englishman that there’s gold to be found here, but it soon becomes clear to Cal that there’s no gold and that Johnny and the Englishman are in cahoots together to convince people to give them money for equity in this “mining company”. Trey blames the townspeople for the death of her older brother Brendan a few years back, so she’s willing to help in the scheme to defraud the townspeople.

When word gets around that there’s no gold, the rich Englishman winds up dead and Trey finds the body. A detective comes poking around. Trey tells him that a group of the townspeople are involved, hoping that the people that killed Brendan will get justice in this way. However, Cal’s partner Lena convinces Trey that her plan won’t work and that the townspeople will point the finger at Cal (as an outsider) to avoid blame. Or if there’s no evidence and Trey is the only one who was seen with the body, Cal will just confess to protect Trey. Trey decides to give up her revenge scheme when she understands the situation she’s putting Cal in, and she instead points the finger at Johnny as the scapegoat instead. Trey’s mother soon tells her in confidence that she was the one who killed the Englishman in order to prevent Trey from ruining her life by getting involved in this scheme. Trey and her mother come up with a plan to light their house and the surrounding area on fire to destroy any evidence of the murder, and Johnny skips town since he’s the most likely suspect for the Englishman’s murder.

In Chapters 1 – 8, Johnny Reddy returns to the small Irish mountainside town where the family he abandoned lives with a get-rich-quick scheme. A man he met recently, Cillian Rushborough, believes there’s gold in those mountains because Cillian’s grandmother is from the area and told him about it. Johnny intends to serve as a middleman to negotiate with the local residents to charge Rushborough to mine and pan for gold, taking a cut from either side. Everyone knows Johnny means trouble, but the prospect of riches draws in the townspeople anyway.

Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago police detective. He and his partner, Lena, have helped to care for Johnny’s estranged daughter Trey in his absence. They worry about what Johnny’s presence means for her and want to protect her. Cal gets involved in the scheme in order to keep an eye on things.

Meanwhile, Trey carries her own grudges against the town and her father. Her older brother Brendan left home a while after Johnny abandoned them, and Trey blames both Johnny and the townspeople for Brendan’s death. She finds out that Johnny has talked a bunch of men into investing in some gold to salt the river with so Rushborough will think there’s gold. She decides to record them doing it.

In Chapters 9 – 13, Trey takes the recording of the men planting gold in the river to Rushborough. She is hoping that he’ll see it and decide to leave town, which will likely result in her father leaving as well. However, He sees it and immediately call Johnny to his place. Trey soon realizes that Rushborough knows there’s no gold, and he’s working with Johnny because Johnny owes him money. Rushborough makes it clear that he is a dangerous man, and he wants Trey to help them with their plan by pretending to find some gold as well. The point is to convince the men in town to invest more money into his “mining company” so they can steal their money. Trey agrees to help only because she hates the townspeople and blames them for Brendan’s death.

Meanwhile, Cal’s partner Lena confirms with an older town resident, Mrs. Duggan, that there’s never been rumors of gold in these mountains until now and the story about Rushborough’s grandmother is likely false. Cal and Lena figure out that Johnny and Rushborough are likely working together and that Johnny owes the guy money.

Rushborough pretends to fall for the scheme that there’s gold here. Meanwhile, Trey also pretends to find some gold. But still, word starts to get around that perhaps there is no gold. Threats are made against Johnny and Trey that things could get ugly if things don’t pan out. Trey and Cal both want the other person to stay out of this messy business.

In Chapters 14 – 21, Rushborough soon turns up dead. Trey finds the body and tells Cal, who alerts the authorities. When Trey is questioned by Detective Nealon, Cal can tell from her answers that she fully intends to direct the detective towards suspecting her neighbors, who she blames for her brother’s death. Trey tells Nealon that she heard a group of men with local accents out on the mountainside near where the body was found that night.

Nealon soon establishes that Rushborough’s real name is Terrence Blake. And that he died between midnight and 2AM. No one mentions anything about the gold scheme to him.

Once Nealon starts questioning people, Lena is worried that because Cal is an outsider, the other men might serve him up as a sacrificial lamb. Lena decides to tell people that she and Cal are engaged in hopes they’ll be less inclined to single him out without also throwing Lena under the bus too. Beyond that, Lena knows that Cal would rather implicate himself than let something happen to Trey, and Trey is the only person who is confirmed to have been on the mountainside that night.

Trey reluctantly gives up her revenge scheme when she understands the situation she’s putting Cal in. She instead points the finger at Johnny as the scapegoat instead. Trey’s mother soon tells her in confidence that she was the one who killed Rushborough in order to prevent Trey from ruining her life by getting involved in this scheme. She wants Trey to learn carpentry from Cal and opening a shop instead of wasting her life by making everyone hate her or worse by getting involved in this stuff.

Trey and her mother come up with a plan to light their house and the surrounding area on fire to destroy any evidence of the murder, and Johnny skips town since he’s the most likely suspect for the Englishman’s murder. The book ends with Trey going to stay with Cal.

For more detail, see the full Chapter-by-Chapter Summary.

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