Broken Harbour

In these chapters, French establishes the narrative structure, using first-person point of view from Detective Scorcher’s perspective. The novel opens with Scorcher’s retrospective thoughts on the investigation, which should have been a “dream case,” meaning easily solved and proven. This section of the novel introduces and develops Scorcher, a character who is initially characterized by his need for control. By using the first-person point of view, French facilitates characterization by following Scorcher’s thoughts, which becomes important in connection with novel’s theme of Using Appearance to Shape Reality. Scorcher presents a carefully curated image to the world, and his insistence on control is eventually shown to be how he coped with his mother’s death by suicide. The point of view also emphasizes conflicts between Scorcher’s inner and outer life. Scorcher is aware that others see him as pompous, vapid, and too much of a rule follower, but he reasons that “life has more than enough excitement up its sleeve” (13). This thought reflects the impact his career has had on his worldview, but it also alludes to personal trauma that has left him seeing a banal life as a relief.

Throughout this section of the novel, French builds suspense about both the investigation and Scorcher’s character. The case is his first after a lull in his career, since his “last high-profile [case] went wrong” (5). French does not elaborate, instead delving into the pressures of his personal life and relationships, which seem to feature an unexplored connection to the murder site, Broken Harbour. He is in contact with his sister Geri, asking her to pick up their youngest sister, Dina, since “[w]hen she heard this story, she needed to be somewhere safe” (8). French thus creates questions about the relationship dynamics between the siblings, including the need to protect Dina, and the family’s connection to Broken Harbour. Scorcher indicates that he knows Broken Harbour when his superintendent tells him where the murders took place but doesn’t elaborate.

French introduces setting as a key point of connection between Scorcher’s past and about the investigation. The fact that the name has changed from Broken Harbour to Brianstown at first separates it from the place Scorcher knew as a child. However, it is the first thing that connects Scorcher to the Spains. It foreshadows the fact that Scorcher eventually gets too close to the case and relinquishes his professionalism. While he doesn’t know the Spains, his personal connection to the location and his own tragedy connects him to them and the place where they were killed. For both Scorcher and the Spains, Broken Harbour connotes family. The Spains ended up there because they dreamed of buying a house to raise their children. Scorcher’s family vacationed there annually, and it was important to their family because it was where his mother was happiest. With this juxtaposition, the novel sets up a contrast between the past Broken Harbour, the site of vacations, and Brianstown, the current site of financial devastation and the Spains’ murders.

With this comparison, this section of the novel also introduces the historical context of the recession in connection with place. The Ocean View estate exemplifies the housing boom that took place in Ireland in the early 2000s, just before the recession meant that many locations were left unfinished or abandoned (See: Background). French uses Scorcher’s observations about the estate to characterize the location’s thwarted potential: “At first glance, Ocean View looked pretty tasty […] second glance, the grass needed weeding and there were gaps in the footpaths. Third glance, something was wrong” (15). The estate is unfinished and barely inhabited, which gives it an ominous quality. The introduction of the recession as the catalyst for this devastation establishes the circumstances for the novel’s exploration of The Essential Animal Nature of Humans by illustrating the effects of the recession.

The narrative carries this thread through to the Spains themselves, and their house itself is also characterized as threatening. When Scorcher and Richie initially talk to one of the uniformed officers who was first on scene, he “was shifting on his feet, trying to angle the conversation so that he could see the house, like it was a coiled animal that might pounce at any second” (18). In this section, French establishes her use of animal imagery to build the novel’s ominous tone and increase suspense about what happened in the house and why.

French also begins to emphasize the daily reality of the recession through details within dialogue. When Scorcher and Richie interview Jenny’s sister, Fiona, she mentions it as the reason Pat lost his job and notes that they bought the house three years ago. In response, Scorcher thinks, “2006: the height of the boom. Whatever they had paid, these days the gaff was worth half of that” (51). These details both situate the book within its historical context and foreshadow the reasons for the crime; the implication is that if they hadn’t bought a house in the isolated but more affordable area, or if they had more neighbors, or if Pat hadn’t lost his job, things may have ended differently. These implications establish the theme of The Question of Agency Versus Randomness as the victims’ actions and decisions are questioned as though they had a role in the crime.