Tense French farm stay

Sean, a Londoner, is on the run in rural France.

Afraid he's being chased by the police, he jumps over a fence on to a remote farm, and walks into a trap. Literally.

The next several weeks are spent recovering on the run-down farm under the care of Mathilde, a solo mother. Mathilde's much younger sister, Gretchen, squabbles at the drop of a hat, and her father, Arnaud, blusters and bullies, and often terrifies.

The scenes on the farm are interrupted by chapters from the past, in which we learn how Sean has come to be on the run. Finally, both the past and the present explode into a violent climax.

Beckett is a skilled writer; the book proceeds with a Hitchcockian building of tension. Slowly, but with increasing details adding to the mystery, we discover almost nothing is as it appears.

At times it seems Beckett is holding back just too much information. People often put off saying something important, or are interrupted just as they're about to speak. But by the time we reach the end we realise it was worth the wait.

The atmosphere of the long hot French summer is well-sustained and the farm presented so visually we could almost find our own way around it. If we were brave enough.

- Mike Crowl is a Dunedin writer, musician and composer.