I just finished THE KEEPER by Tana French, and I'm sad, not that the end is sad but that this is the third book in a trilogy. It's sad that I reached the end. No more Cal or Lena or Trey. No more Ardnakelty, Ireland.

The trilogy centers on Cal, a former Chicago police detective who has moved to a small farming town in Ireland, Ardnakelty, for its beauty and its seeming simplicity. But it isn't long before he discovers that his first impression wasn't exactly correct; he was right about the beauty, but troubles find him partly because people there know he was a police detective. Heck, the police there (the "guards") think of him as one of them.

In THE KEEPER, Cal and the farmers he pals around with get wind of a plan to acquire their land and modernize Ardnakelty, meaning no more farmland. Tommy, the local big businessman, is behind this. And when a sweet young woman, Tommy's son's fiancé, is found dead in a river, opinions about the cause of death differ. Most decide she committed suicide. But was Tommy at fault?

When another suspicious death occurs in Ardnakelty, Cal learns this is no accident. He and his farmer friends are sure they know who did it but need to decide what to do about it.

In the meantime, Lena, Cal's fiancé and Ardnakelty native who has always stayed out of the town's business, has been asking around about the goings on. Still, she's unhappy with Cal for getting involved.

And then there's Trey. Trey is a teenager now, but she first met Cal when she came to him for help in book one of the trilogy. She seemed like a wild child back then. Now she seems to me to make the most sense: she believes that murderers belong in jail.

So now we've come to the end. Let's hope that French doesn't really end Cal's story and comes up with a standalone to let us know how everyone is doing. I'd like to know that Ardnakelty is still a small farming town in Ireland and that everyone still has their lovely Irish country accent.