The Witch Elm

Happy go lucky Toby comes home from the bar late at night and is attacked by burglars who are rifling through his apartment. They leave him with a traumatic brain injury, which turns his life upside down. After some months of trying to recover, Toby agrees to move in with and look after his uncle Hugo, who is dying of brain cancer. Hugo lives in the Ivy House, a house that Toby and his two cousins Susanna and Leon have known and loved all their lives. When a human skull is found in the hollow of an old elm tree in the yard, old secrets start to surface as well.

This was a creepy novel. French makes the most of Toby's uncertainty, so that I didn't know how much to believe his telling of the story, even though he is the narrator. Also, throughout the story Toby reveals himself to be oblivious to other people's feelings and problems, self absorbed, and mean, and as the story goes on, Toby begins to understand a little bit of this himself. The murder is solved ambiguously, and by that time Toby has lost his assurance that he knows himself. I didn't like Toby, but I liked the book.