The witch elm, by Tana French

A very disturbing book.  I had not read any of the author’s previous novels, which are evidently a related mystery series.  This stand-alone novel introduces us to Toby, a lucky young man with everything going for him.  He has a job he likes, a girlfriend he loves and hopes to marry, good friends, and a loving family which includes the two cousins he grew up with, Susanna and Leon.  Then everything falls apart one night when he is attacked by burglars in his Dublin apartment.  Left badly injured by their assault and with damaged memory and cognition, he ends up recuperating from his physical and mental wounds at the Elm House, where his father grew up.  His uncle, Hugo, the sole son of four who has never married, still lives there.  Hugo is dying of an inoperable brain tumor, so Toby and Melissa move in to help care for him.  During the traditional family lunch gathering one Sunday, Susanna’s children discover a human skull in the hole of the trunk of an ancient wych elm in the garden.  What follows will throw all of Toby’s beliefs about his life into uncertainty.  Although the book is very well written, I found it so unpleasant that I kept wondering why I was putting myself through it.  509 pp.