The Searcher - Tana French
This is Tana French's eighth novel, but the only one I have had the pleasure of reading so far. This book is going onto my reference shelf - books that I pull out when I want to remind myself how to write a particular scene.
There are numerous levels to this book. First of all, the overall canvas of the story. French's descriptions of the sky, hills, fields, and weather provides a dynamic, visual background for all the events that transpire.
Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago police officer who buys a run-down house in Ireland. He believes the remote village to be peaceful and untroubled by crime and murder, a place where he can just quietly rehabilitate his run-down house and watch the rooks scold him from the end of his yard. That's the way it starts - just sliding into the scenery.
Then there are the people. His neighbor, Mart, likes his cookies, but like everything else in this story there is more to Mart than his neighborly charm.
Cal goes drinking at the local pub and is induced into the local society, drinking some home brew. French does such an amazing job describing this evening that I was concerned that I was going to wake up with a hangover the next morning. She described one of the participants (I'm paraphrasing) as making a face like a toad licking piss off a nettle.
French layers the story on like the skin of an onion with a solid structure, wonderful characters, beautiful scenery, and a bit of romance and violence to make it interesting.
The Searcher is written in the present tense which I always find a challenge. There are backstory references in the past tense, but keeping the main stream of the tale in the present tense creates an immediacy to the words. It's happening now as I'm reading it. It's the kind of story that fits neatly within the covers - as though Cal's life begins and ends right there and goes no further.
But the rooks are always there to comment.
It is an entertaining book, but it is also a master class in how to write a mystery without buildings exploding or planes falling out of the sky. Excellent. I'll have to read more of Tana French's books.
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Radon
January is Radon Action Month. I bet you didn't know that. I mean, what is radon and why should you care? Aren't there a lot more serious things floating around in the air these days?
Radon just happens to be the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. It is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that you can't see or smell produced by the natural breakdown of uranium in soil, rock, and water. Radon is a gas formed by the natural decay of radium. Radon gas by itself is not dangerous, but as it decays, the gas produces radiation in the form of microscopic particles that can cling to house dust or other airborne particles.
Radon is measured in picocuries per liter of air (pCi/L). A picocurie is one-trillionth of a curie, which measures radioactivity in disintegrations per second. There is no SAFE level of radon, but the EPA recommends homes be fixed if the radon level is 4 pCi/L or more.
Radon Myths
"Radon precautions are unwarranted. There is no evidence that anyone has died from radon."
Radon gas is responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths every year in the U.S. At 2 pCi/L with about 3 liters of air within the average lung, about 40 alpha releases occur each minute within the lungs!
Fortunately the liquid lining of the lungs serves to shield tissue. Individual cells struck by an alpha particle most often die rather than turn cancerous.
"Radon hazards do not exist in my area."
Because radon comes from geology and geologic formations are not uniform, and because of the variations in house construction and occupancy patterns, one home can be high and the home next door can be low. The only way to know is to test. There are a variety of short term and long term tests to help you determine if you should take action. I use a continuous monitor from AirThings. It's amazing to watch the level change from day to day.
The EPA has some wonderfully informative information about radon that you should check out like The Consumer's Guide to Radon Reduction.
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