Tana French won a much-coveted Edgar Award for her first novel, “In the Woods,” which introduced readers to the Dublin murder squad. With her newest, “The Witch Elm,” French takes a break from that best-selling series to tell the story of a man who moves to his ancestral home to recover from a bad injury only to find more trouble. French was born in Vermont, but her family moved to Malawi, Italy, and then Ireland. She currently lives in Dublin with her husband and two children.
BOOKS: How has living in so many different countries influenced your reading?
FRENCH: The main way is that I like books with a degree of cultural immersion, like I love Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible,” which immerses you so deeply that when you come out of it you feel some culture shock. I’ve also liked books like Chita Banerjee Divakaruni’s “The Mistress of Spices,” where culture clash plays a role.
BOOKS: Have you read anything like that recently?
FRENCH: The nearest would be Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove.” Talk about immersion. It’s a gang of men and one woman doing a cattle drive for hundreds of pages. You are right inside their world and their priorities.
BOOKS: Do you read mysteries?
FRENCH: I tend to love the off-genre ones rather than the classics. Like Denis Lehane’s “Mystic River,” which is a gripping mystery but also a social exploration of a neighborhood and a family saga. Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series does the same things. It has multiple themes running through it.
BOOKS: What classic mystery writers do you like?
FRENCH: I love Josephine Tey’s “The Franchise Affair, “Brat Farrar,” and “The Daughter of Time.” “The Franchise Affair” is so beautifully done because there’s so little crime in it. It’s this chilling portrait of a young psychopath in action. He’s not a Hannibal Lecter eating people’s faces. It’s someone very ordinary, which is scary. And Patricia Highsmith, talk about genre bending. With “The Talented Mr. Ripley” you find yourself rooting for this cold-blooded killer.
BOOKS: When did you start reading mysteries?
FRENCH: In high school. We were living in Rome, and traffic was nuts. My bus ride to school was an hour and a half each way. A friend would bring Agatha Christie with her and introduced me to her books. They made the bus ride go a lot faster. They are addictive, like eating Pringles.
BOOKS: What other kinds of fiction do like to read?
FRENCH: I’ve been reading Donal Ryan’s “The Spinning Heart.” He’s a marvelous Irish writer. It’s a collection of interweaving short stories set in a small Irish town. I love anything like that. It hasn’t been part of my experience to have a community where I grew up, and everyone has known everyone for generations, so I’m fascinated by books about what that is like.
BOOKS: What are some books you’ve reread?
FRENCH: Richard Adams’s “Watership Down.” I read it for the first time at 7. It was the first book that made me realize that language isn’t just there to tell the story but that it can just be a thing of beauty. I’ve been back every few years since.
BOOKS: Do you have your original copy?
FRENCH: I do, but it’s in pieces and has peanut butter on the pages. I also have my original copy of T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King.” My mother realized if she gave me a really big book at the start of a long flight, she only had to cope with my brother. I read it through some flight, like Malawi to Rome, got off and kept reading. It was the book that showed me how extremely complicated adults can be.
BOOKS: What would make you put a book down?
FRENCH: If there’s anything that breaks character. I care more about the characters than anything else in a book.
BOOKS: Do you have a favorite literary character?
FRENCH: Any by Donna Tartt. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but when I read “The Goldfinch,” one of the characters from “The Secret History,” Hobie, showed up briefly. I was like, “Bring him back. I need to talk to him.’’
The Boston Globe may earn a portion of sales from products purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers.
Follow us on Facebook or Twitter @GlobeBiblio. Amy Sutherland, author, most recently, of “Rescuing Penny Jane,’’ can be reached at amysutherland@mac.com.