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Dublin Murder Squad #5
The Secret Place
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2014)A year ago a boy was found murdered at a girlsʼ boarding school, and the case was never solved. Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to join Dublin’s Murder Squad when sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey arrives in his office with a photo of the boy with the caption: “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.” Stephen joins with Detective Antoinette Conway to reopen the case—beneath the watchful eye of Holly’s father, fellow detective Frank Mackey. With the clues leading back to Holly’s close-knit group of friends, to their rival clique, and to the tangle of relationships that bound them all to the murdered boy, the private underworld of teenage girls turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detectives imagined.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published September 2, 2014
About the author
Tana French
23 books28.1k followersTana French is the New York Times bestselling author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, The Trespasser and The Witch Elm. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,712 reviews
January 28, 2016
Giving this book a 2 breaks my heart. The Dublin Squad series by Tana French is among my top 2 mystery series of all time, and I've loved every book in the series - except for this one.
The magic is gone.
The writing in this book lacks the sparkle of the previous ones. It may be that the main character, Detective Stephen Moran, is particularly dull. The previous narrators have all absorbed me into their story, they all had such personality. Rob is tragic. Cassie is strong. Mackey a tough son of a bitch, etc. All of them had something beneath the surface. Stephen is just plain old boring.
I didn't like the supporting characters. His partner is the epitome of the bitchy detective, tough because she has to play in the boy's club. Typically, a character like that should be written to evoke some sympathy within me, but I had no emotions towards her except distaste.
The portrayal of the teenaged characters in the books were over the top. From the bitchy queen bees to the "weirdoes." Altogether, there were 8 teenaged girls and more boys at the boarding school to keep track of, and it was just such an effort keeping them all in line.
The narrative was the most frustrating part of the story. Unlike the previous books, the narrative within this one jumped so much, from character to character, from past to present. It got to the point where I felt like a detective myself just trying to figure out when the narrative was taking place.
Oh, well. 4/5 books ain't bad, but I'm just so disappointed :(
The magic is gone.
The writing in this book lacks the sparkle of the previous ones. It may be that the main character, Detective Stephen Moran, is particularly dull. The previous narrators have all absorbed me into their story, they all had such personality. Rob is tragic. Cassie is strong. Mackey a tough son of a bitch, etc. All of them had something beneath the surface. Stephen is just plain old boring.
I didn't like the supporting characters. His partner is the epitome of the bitchy detective, tough because she has to play in the boy's club. Typically, a character like that should be written to evoke some sympathy within me, but I had no emotions towards her except distaste.
The portrayal of the teenaged characters in the books were over the top. From the bitchy queen bees to the "weirdoes." Altogether, there were 8 teenaged girls and more boys at the boarding school to keep track of, and it was just such an effort keeping them all in line.
The narrative was the most frustrating part of the story. Unlike the previous books, the narrative within this one jumped so much, from character to character, from past to present. It got to the point where I felt like a detective myself just trying to figure out when the narrative was taking place.
Oh, well. 4/5 books ain't bad, but I'm just so disappointed :(
June 21, 2018
okay. so let me get the bad news out of the way. this book has disrupted my opinion-based observation that every single tana french book has been better then the one that came before. which is probably for the best - it was starting to feel downright witchy, her powers, and it is an impossible thing to sustain, this exponential improvement from book to book.
having said that, this book is still absolutely amazing and riveting and everything you want out of a literary crime novel. this woman is a master of her craft, both in her storytelling and the way she manipulates structure to increase tension and set the most delicious pace; page turning but also frustrating as she expertly holds you back from climax; giving you what you want in her own time while developing her characters and themes way beyond what is typical for a mystery novel.
read the synopsis and meet me back here - easier that way.
yeah?
this here is megan abbott territory - the secret world of adolescent girls with all that confusing swirling mash of vulnerability, cruelty, self-preservation, loyalty, sacrifice, and burgeoning new power in the form of sexual currency. which is of course not something new or invented by megan abbott, but she's just the best i've read at exposing all of girlhood's dirty little corners. and now tana french proves that she also has the chops to pull it off.
the action of the story takes place in a single day, with alternating chapters coming in-between detailing pertinent events from the past, counting down the time chris harper has left to live, tightening the circle of events as relationships evolve and the girls navigate the new world opening up to them. it's all secrets and trust and "us against them." and the half-heard song, maddeningly elusive.
the best thing about this book is the way the relationship between detectives conway and moran slooooowly grows. stephen moran was a character in Faithful Place, and since the events of that book he has been stuck working cold cases and yearning to break into the murder squad. detective conway is a take-no-shit detective already working on the murder squad, where her caustic personality has made her zero allies, and she is currently without a partner. when moran unexpectedly gets an opportunity to work alongside conway on a single case, they both have something to prove and there is a desperate "last chance" momentum driving them both. because of this drive and their similar working class upbringings, so very different from those of the privileged girls they are interviewing, it would seem like an easy professional match, but they both have baggage, ambitions, and fundamental differences that makes their partnership inauspicious from the get-go. but over the course of the day, you can see their minds start to work together, and once it all clicks into place, their interplay is like a well-oiled machine and it's the very best kind of tag team detective work.
it also brings back some blasts from the past - when holly mackey chooses to come to detective moran with her story and her evidence, she is coming to him both as the daughter of moran's old frenemy, detective mackey, and because of the intelligent and respectful way moran treated her the last time holly had evidence to a crime. but she is no longer nine years old, moran's about to learn how complicated teenage girls can be, and detective mackey is ready to step in to protect his daughter if need be - family before cops.
okay, so my reasons for liking this slightly less than broken harbor.
omg, teenspeak. one of my favorite things about Faithful Place was her facility and authenticity with regard to voice. it created a truly immersive experience, so much so that it was hard to come out of in between reading sessions, blinking confusedly into a world that wasn't being filtered through the cadence and lilt of the inhabitants of dublin. with this one, i was so grateful to get out of the teen girl chapters and back into the detectives' story because of the way their voices grated on me. i come into contact with (more than) enough teenagers in my day-to-day, and i have just never heard any of them actually speak like this. i am familiar with the stereotype from my computer interactions, but i have never once heard the words "totes amazeballs" or "awesomesauce"used unironically. and here it is frequent and bludgeoning and all "hello?" and "ohmygod" and everything ends in that inflection like it's a question? and it's hard for me to reconcile the incredibly sophisticated and sensitive inner lives of these teengirl characters, all of their machinations and fine-tuned strategies and perceptions with the way they express themselves verbally, where they sound like unbright valley girls. it just doesn't scan. and maybe it is me being out of touch, which is totes possible, but that dead-smart calm skill set that enables nearly all eight girls to dodge the very capable detectives and protect themselves and their friends is at odds with the lazy slang they parrot.
the only other thing i wasn't crazy about was
but on the whole, a fantastic book. there's the central murder mystery plus all those constantly-running white noise themes woven into and behind everything - all the class and gender and age-oppositions, all the clique and popularity factors, and then the finer-grained battles determining who is the best at keeping secrets and reading people and it all just meshes perfectly into this story of girls and crime and nothing left to lose.
next, please!
***********************************
you will be at BEA.
i will be at BEA.
come to my blog!
having said that, this book is still absolutely amazing and riveting and everything you want out of a literary crime novel. this woman is a master of her craft, both in her storytelling and the way she manipulates structure to increase tension and set the most delicious pace; page turning but also frustrating as she expertly holds you back from climax; giving you what you want in her own time while developing her characters and themes way beyond what is typical for a mystery novel.
read the synopsis and meet me back here - easier that way.
yeah?
this here is megan abbott territory - the secret world of adolescent girls with all that confusing swirling mash of vulnerability, cruelty, self-preservation, loyalty, sacrifice, and burgeoning new power in the form of sexual currency. which is of course not something new or invented by megan abbott, but she's just the best i've read at exposing all of girlhood's dirty little corners. and now tana french proves that she also has the chops to pull it off.
the action of the story takes place in a single day, with alternating chapters coming in-between detailing pertinent events from the past, counting down the time chris harper has left to live, tightening the circle of events as relationships evolve and the girls navigate the new world opening up to them. it's all secrets and trust and "us against them." and the half-heard song, maddeningly elusive.
the best thing about this book is the way the relationship between detectives conway and moran slooooowly grows. stephen moran was a character in Faithful Place, and since the events of that book he has been stuck working cold cases and yearning to break into the murder squad. detective conway is a take-no-shit detective already working on the murder squad, where her caustic personality has made her zero allies, and she is currently without a partner. when moran unexpectedly gets an opportunity to work alongside conway on a single case, they both have something to prove and there is a desperate "last chance" momentum driving them both. because of this drive and their similar working class upbringings, so very different from those of the privileged girls they are interviewing, it would seem like an easy professional match, but they both have baggage, ambitions, and fundamental differences that makes their partnership inauspicious from the get-go. but over the course of the day, you can see their minds start to work together, and once it all clicks into place, their interplay is like a well-oiled machine and it's the very best kind of tag team detective work.
it also brings back some blasts from the past - when holly mackey chooses to come to detective moran with her story and her evidence, she is coming to him both as the daughter of moran's old frenemy, detective mackey, and because of the intelligent and respectful way moran treated her the last time holly had evidence to a crime. but she is no longer nine years old, moran's about to learn how complicated teenage girls can be, and detective mackey is ready to step in to protect his daughter if need be - family before cops.
okay, so my reasons for liking this slightly less than broken harbor.
omg, teenspeak. one of my favorite things about Faithful Place was her facility and authenticity with regard to voice. it created a truly immersive experience, so much so that it was hard to come out of in between reading sessions, blinking confusedly into a world that wasn't being filtered through the cadence and lilt of the inhabitants of dublin. with this one, i was so grateful to get out of the teen girl chapters and back into the detectives' story because of the way their voices grated on me. i come into contact with (more than) enough teenagers in my day-to-day, and i have just never heard any of them actually speak like this. i am familiar with the stereotype from my computer interactions, but i have never once heard the words "totes amazeballs" or "awesomesauce"used unironically. and here it is frequent and bludgeoning and all "hello?" and "ohmygod" and everything ends in that inflection like it's a question? and it's hard for me to reconcile the incredibly sophisticated and sensitive inner lives of these teengirl characters, all of their machinations and fine-tuned strategies and perceptions with the way they express themselves verbally, where they sound like unbright valley girls. it just doesn't scan. and maybe it is me being out of touch, which is totes possible, but that dead-smart calm skill set that enables nearly all eight girls to dodge the very capable detectives and protect themselves and their friends is at odds with the lazy slang they parrot.
the only other thing i wasn't crazy about was
but on the whole, a fantastic book. there's the central murder mystery plus all those constantly-running white noise themes woven into and behind everything - all the class and gender and age-oppositions, all the clique and popularity factors, and then the finer-grained battles determining who is the best at keeping secrets and reading people and it all just meshes perfectly into this story of girls and crime and nothing left to lose.
next, please!
***********************************
you will be at BEA.
i will be at BEA.
come to my blog!
May 17, 2015
"If I've learned one thing today, it's that teenage girls make Moriarty look like a babe in the woods."
Tana French takes on the world of teenage girls. This book was 100% worth waiting for and, though I've loved all of French's mysteries, I think this could actually be my favourite. It was just so wonderful to get back into a book full of great characterisation, intricate relationships, clever red herrings and a writing style that so wholly fits my tastes. French writes the only kind of lengthy, descriptive books I can get fully absorbed into - because her description is so engaging and interesting that I just want more and more. Nearly 500 pages and I didn't want it to end.
Maybe the reason I read so much YA is because I find teenage girls some of the most interesting, scary, complicated, ridiculous, obsessive and crazy of characters. With French's trademark well-developed characterisation that delves deep into the minds of nearly everyone the novel introduces us to, the insane world of teenage girls becomes an intense bubble of hormones and insecurities mixed in with a spot of murder. Could an angel-faced, upper middle class girl of 16 really murder someone in cold blood? It won't take you long to be convinced.
Teen girl politics fascinates me. The strength and/or fragility of friendship ties, the capacity for evil and bitchiness, the unspoken rules that have to be learned. If you think this book can't be frightening, then you had a better time in high school than I did. French makes school even more creepy and terrifying, and breaks it up with her usual life insights that I always enjoy reading.
As always, this book is as much about the detectives as it is about the suspects and the crime. When Holly Mackey brings a photo to Detective Stephen Moran, he sees an opportunity to get out of Cold Cases and play with the big guys over at Murder. The photo - of a murdered boy with the words "I know who killed him" written on it - could change everything. Teaming up with Detective Antoinette Conway over in Murder, Moran heads into the world of private school girls and attempts to uncover the truth about what really happened to Chris Harper. It soon becomes apparent that more than one girl has skeletons in her closet.
Moran and Conway work so good together. They both come from poor backgrounds and have worked their way up, but Moran longs for the flawless beauty of the wealthy, whereas Conway resents it. They bicker and they bond. The relationship between them is crafted excellently and I'd love to see them working together in future books - though, knowing French, that seems unlikely.
"Things don't make sense, when you're that age; you don't make sense."
I've always said that the best kind of mysteries are those where the reveals don't matter so much. Those where the story and characters are fascinating enough to carry the book regardless of whodunnit. Tana French ALWAYS writes those kind of books, IMO. This latest addition is as wonderful as always and is a really great look at the bittersweetness of youth, friendship and growing up. And it has a captivating cast of crazy teen girls (as if there's any other type). French does have the odd habit of introducing a few things that never get solved; red herrings some might say, frustrating others will tell you, but I like it. I like the constant mystery of not knowing whether this is an important clue for the murder or just another crazy part of life. Now I just need her to write more.
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April 26, 2023
“This has nothing to do with what anyone else in all the world would approve or forbid. This is all their own.”Reducing Tana French's books to a simple concept of "murder mysteries" would be like describing Anna Karenina as "that story about the train".
I called them "intense psychological f*ckeries" before, and that also is not enough. I just don't know how to express my admiration for her skills in weaving bright and intricate and yet subtle relationship webs based in brilliant clever characterization, building the charged atmosphere that makes the world of her stories come undeniably alive. It's no longer about the culprit, about 'who-done-it"; in the end it is not the reveal (which should never come as a surprise to a careful reader) that matters but how we got there¹, the journey through the lives of the characters that Tana French made painfully real for us.
¹Apparently Tana French does think so. From the question she answered here on GR about this book, "...but you're right, I'm way more interested in the whydunit than in the whodunit. I think the really important question about murder is what can bring a normal person, someone who doesn't enjoy inflicting harm, to the point where he or she believes that murder is necessary or even desirable."And sometimes she rips our hearts to shreds and leaves them to bleed.
Remember the time - the era, the epoch even - when you lived in the intense and magical and fragile and frustratingly confusing world of adolescence? When feelings, emotions and passions were always this close to the surface, when the smallest events had the greatest significance, when tensions were everywhere, when no adult could ever understand you, when it was you against the new and changed and strange world with suddenly new confusing rules, and when friendships and relationships were forever, were blindingly intense, were the essence of what made you.
“I never thought I’d have friends like you guys, Becca says, deep inside the third night. Never. You’re my miracles.”
“... But that age; remember that age? They’re not the same. They don’t put things together. That’s why half of what they do looks full-on certifiable, to you or me or any sane adult. Things don’t make sense, when you’re that age; you don’t make sense. You stop expecting to.”In The Secret Place - the fifth book of Dublin Murder Squad pseudo-series ('pseudo' because the connections between the books are quite slight, with a supporting character in one of them taking the lead role in the next, allowing you to be able to read them out of order and still understand everything), Tana French brings to focus the world of teenage girls in a Dublin boarding school, St. Kelda's. A year ago, a sixteen-year-old boy Chris Harper from a neighboring boarding school for boys was murdered in the middle of the night in the cypress grove on the idyllically beautiful school grounds. The murder was never solved, the case went maddeningly cold.
And then, one day Detective Stephen Moran gets an unexpected visit from Holly Mackey, a student at St. Kelda's and a daughter of one of Moran's colleagues. She finds something that will bring the focus back on Chris Harper's murder - a card found on the school notice board, where somebody pasted cut-out letters under the picture of Chris, saying simply, "I know who killed him". And just like that, the investigation is back in the full swing, and Moran and his colleague Antoinette Conway realize that the grip of the investigation is quickly closing on the eight girls, one of whom has to be the killer - four girls in Holly's close-knit band of friends and four girls in a rival group. One of these sweet upper-middle-class sixteen-year-olds is a cold-blooded killer. It's hard for Moran to even imagine that - but after the 400-plus pages of the inner world of adolescent girls you can easily see it happening. Because the world they inhabit is anything but sweet and innocent; it's full of beautiful and fragile and evil things that bubble so close to the surface that they will one day inevitably explode.
“You forget what it was like. You’d swear on your life you never will, but year by year it falls away. How your temperature ran off the mercury, your heart galloped flat-out and never needed to rest, everything was pitched on the edge of shattering glass. How wanting something was like dying of thirst. How your skin was too fine to keep out any of the million things flooding by; every color boiled bright enough to scald you, any second of any day could send you soaring or rip you to bloody shreds.”
In every one of French's books there is a theme of friendship - the start of the bond, its culmination, its painful dissolution - that rings true to anyone who has ever had a passionate, true, beautiful friendship for which you thought you could do anything. The Secret Place is no exception to that.
Through the chapters alternating between the present-day investigation (literally taking just a day) and the entire previous year at the end of which Chris Harper's life was suddenly cut short, we see the culmination of the powerful all-encompassing friendship bond that forms between Holly and her friends - Julia, Becca and Selena - turning them into pretty much a family. It's a beautiful friendship that is strengthened by the absurd demands of the world of growing up in which the four girls find themselves. It is a friendship born of the desire to push back the nasty evil bits of the world - the double standards, the ridiculous expectations, the gossiping, the humiliations. It is a friendship bond strengthened by the world that wants to take you down and turn you into a self-loathing clone of what is societally appropriate.
“She hears all the voices from when she was little, soothing, strengthening: Don’t be scared, not of monsters, not of witches, not of big dogs. And now, snapping loud from every direction: Be scared, you have to be scared, ordering like this is your one absolute duty. Be scared you’re fat, be scared your boobs are too big and be scared they’re too small. Be scared to walk on your own, specially anywhere quiet enough that you can hear yourself think. Be scared of wearing the wrong stuff, saying the wrong thing, having a stupid laugh, being uncool. Be scared of guys not fancying you; be scared of guys, they’re animals, rabid, can’t stop themselves. Be scared of girls, they’re all vicious, they’ll cut you down before you can cut them. Be scared of strangers. Be scared you won’t do well enough in your exams, be scared of getting in trouble. Be scared terrified petrified that everything you are is every kind of wrong. Good girl.”On the other hand, we have a delicately tentative formation of friendship between Detectives Stephen Moran and Antoinette Conway, the friendship that has lots of prickly angles and mistrustful hang-ups to navigate. Moran and Conway both come from the poor urban areas of Dublin - a world away from the cozy secure comfort of St. Kelda's, and they see this alien to them world of privilege through very different eyes: Conway is prickly and derisive of the snotty rich, and seems to care very little about it; Moran is taken in by the serene beauty of this place, and is ready to claw his way to the security it promises. There are all kinds of kinks to iron out, and heads to butt, and plenty of baggage to reckon with; the illusions and dreams to set free before forging something new.
It's the only partnership in French's books that does not fall apart in the heart-wrenching way, and I'm quite happy for this small favor. For now. She'll find a way to break my heart later, I'm sure.
Every one of French's books leaves a lingering mark on my mind, and within every single one there is memory of something that continues to naggingly come back to me long after I finish the story. With this book, I think it will be the character of Selena, the fragile, almost otherwordly girl who seems to inhabit her own universe, just occasionally popping into the world that we call reality. Selena, whose demeanor makes Frank Mackey quite concerned about mental illness that should be addressed (to the indignation of his daughter and Selena's best friend Holly). Whose demeanor and exceptional fragility and sensitivity make me worry that after all, she will be the only one who will not bounce back up, who will retreat further and further into the whatever secret place there is within her.
“The weaving lights are starting to look like living things, giddy and desperately lost. Selena’s going watery at the edges, starting to lose hold of the boundary line where she leaves off and other things start.”And, by the way, it is the evocative beauty of Tana French's descriptive language that shines through the quote above that made me highlight so many passages in this book, and just looking through them makes me want to crack this book open again and once again immerse myself into the world she created, this time knowing everything that happened, and with this knowledge hanging on to the beauty of the relationships she created, now knowing how truly fragile they can be despite the hope that some things can last forever.
----------
My reviews of the rest of Tana French's books can be found here:
In The Woods.
The Likeness.
Faithful Place.
Broken Harbour.
The Trespasser.
January 24, 2021
the thing that makes this story so unique is that it investigates a cold case. im pretty sure every single crime mystery/thriller ive read was about an active investigation, so the fact that this deals with an old unsolved murder and gives a different crime perspective was really exciting for me.
again, true to TF style, this installment has a very character driven narrative. while the crime is the centre of the story, its how the characters and their actions are written that makes this compelling. it also has that dark academia vibe, similar to what made book #2 so successful. while quite not as atmospheric, because this story doesnt deal with undercover, its still good enough for those who like school set mysteries.
so another decent book in the series (which can also be read as a standalone). only one more to go!
↠ 3.5 stars
again, true to TF style, this installment has a very character driven narrative. while the crime is the centre of the story, its how the characters and their actions are written that makes this compelling. it also has that dark academia vibe, similar to what made book #2 so successful. while quite not as atmospheric, because this story doesnt deal with undercover, its still good enough for those who like school set mysteries.
so another decent book in the series (which can also be read as a standalone). only one more to go!
↠ 3.5 stars
September 16, 2014
Almost a 3 star rating!
I liked the detectives! And, I wanted to know who the killer was, so I HAD to keep reading.
However,
"The Secret Place" is NOT as good as 'ALL' other Tana French books. If you're a HUGE TANA FRENCH FAN (as I am) ---You might be disappointed in this book.
If you've never read Tana French before, do not start with this one.
I managed to enjoy this book *enough* --(in spite of so much tedious teen -adolescent- 'lingo').
'Sometimes I felt, Tana French was pretty good giving a voice to the TEEN GIRLS: (their drama-attitudes-and shallow concerns), but right when I thought the author was doing better than MOST adult-writers giving a voice to a teenager--
I'd find a line that would just make me cringe!
For example: One of the teen girls says to her friends: "I liked you better before you grew a pair". YUCK!!!!!
I don't think girls talk to each other this way. They gossip -are mean- are shallow- self-absorbed- etc. --but who says, "I liked you better before you grew a pair"? NOT any girls I ever knew. Its just a yucky line!!!
As for the story: I had my sights on the killer early into this novel....(but I was wrong). It was the 'mystery' that kept me going. Yet, to be honest, I found the ending a little confusing --(even when knowing who the killer was) -- I won't give anything away ---but it was all a let down.
The pace was slow, often uninteresting, and *tedious*!! There were way too many descriptions of little importance, [the road to nowhere].
The biggest mistake of this novel is having too many characters. It demanded us to remember more TEDIOUS information about 'THE GIRLS'. I could have cared less if she had a fake tan, skinny jeans, and real blonde hair or not. Did I really have to suffer through 8 girls worth of these boring descriptions?
so: This review sounds pretty low ---Yet ---I managed to enjoy it 'somewhat'. Yet I resented this novel being as long as it was (having to take the road to nowhere to cross the bridge to find the road to somewhere) >>> in order to find out who the killer was.
One more pet peeve: The ghosts, and clairvoyance mysterious stuff, and ghosts nun's was just 'silly'. (didn't add a thing to the story)
I'm still a Tana French fan---(as this was the 'first' book I wasn't AS crazy about) ---ALL OTHERS was FANTASTIC!!!
I liked the detectives! And, I wanted to know who the killer was, so I HAD to keep reading.
However,
"The Secret Place" is NOT as good as 'ALL' other Tana French books. If you're a HUGE TANA FRENCH FAN (as I am) ---You might be disappointed in this book.
If you've never read Tana French before, do not start with this one.
I managed to enjoy this book *enough* --(in spite of so much tedious teen -adolescent- 'lingo').
'Sometimes I felt, Tana French was pretty good giving a voice to the TEEN GIRLS: (their drama-attitudes-and shallow concerns), but right when I thought the author was doing better than MOST adult-writers giving a voice to a teenager--
I'd find a line that would just make me cringe!
For example: One of the teen girls says to her friends: "I liked you better before you grew a pair". YUCK!!!!!
I don't think girls talk to each other this way. They gossip -are mean- are shallow- self-absorbed- etc. --but who says, "I liked you better before you grew a pair"? NOT any girls I ever knew. Its just a yucky line!!!
As for the story: I had my sights on the killer early into this novel....(but I was wrong). It was the 'mystery' that kept me going. Yet, to be honest, I found the ending a little confusing --(even when knowing who the killer was) -- I won't give anything away ---but it was all a let down.
The pace was slow, often uninteresting, and *tedious*!! There were way too many descriptions of little importance, [the road to nowhere].
The biggest mistake of this novel is having too many characters. It demanded us to remember more TEDIOUS information about 'THE GIRLS'. I could have cared less if she had a fake tan, skinny jeans, and real blonde hair or not. Did I really have to suffer through 8 girls worth of these boring descriptions?
so: This review sounds pretty low ---Yet ---I managed to enjoy it 'somewhat'. Yet I resented this novel being as long as it was (having to take the road to nowhere to cross the bridge to find the road to somewhere) >>> in order to find out who the killer was.
One more pet peeve: The ghosts, and clairvoyance mysterious stuff, and ghosts nun's was just 'silly'. (didn't add a thing to the story)
I'm still a Tana French fan---(as this was the 'first' book I wasn't AS crazy about) ---ALL OTHERS was FANTASTIC!!!
May 2, 2019
Tana French finds new ways to dazzle and impress me with the fifth Dublin Murder Squad novel. Readers familiar with Faithful Place will remember Holly Mackey, daughter of Frank Mackey, and Dublin Police floater Stephen Moran. Seven years later, Moran is now working on Cold Cases and receives an unlikely visit from Holly, who is now sixteen and enrolled at St. Kilda's, an all-girls boarding school. Holly explains that the school has a wall where students can post anonymous comments about their lives without repercussions, called The Secret Place. Holly has come to Moran with one of the cards she found pinned to the wall, a photo of a young man from the nearby all-boys school who was murdered a year ago. On the back of this card, a message indicating that the card's creator has information about the murder. Moran takes this and approached the case's Murder Squad lead, Detective Antoinette Conway, in hopes of joining the investigation. Conway is leery, but agrees after Moran argues his rapport with Holly might be an asset. Trying to make headway, Conway and Moran encounter a clic of girls at the school, all of whom have sentiments about the victim, Chris Harper. This group of teenaged girls would make a murder of crows seem angelic, as they protect one another in one breath and roast the weakest links in the next. Holly is firmly rooted in one of these groups and the investigation shows how Harper used a number of these girls, emotionally and physically, before discarding them and moving onto the next conquest. The reader is given added insight through French's use of a flashback narrative in numerous chapters, which fills in major gaps that Moran and Conway are not able to acquire. While it appears Harper sought to play the girls for his own benefit, which girl is ultimately responsible for his demise is not clear, nor is the witness who posted to The Secret Place. Perhaps the most challenging Squad case yet presented to readers, French does a brilliant job in drawing out the story and then showing how the murderer came to slay young Chris Harper. Fans of the series and new readers alike will find much to enjoy in his book.
As absorbing as these books have become, I sometimes find myself wondering when the other shoe will drop. Will French run out of ideas and have to replicate a plot or premise? I have yet to find that concern and her continued variety has me feeling constantly refreshed. Somewhat of a thriller and police procedural nut, I have been around the block and French stands leaps and bounds ahead of many other authors in the genre. Her constant rotation of protagonists proved even more effective here, as she broke the pattern of finding a minor character from the previous book and looked two novels earlier. She also chose to incorporate three past characters in the story, which forces series fans to remember the nuances that both Mackeys and Moran brought to the aforementioned third book in the series. The cast of school girls was also a significant feat and that it was done so well (and offered a variety of characters even within the group) speaks to French's superior writing abilities. As with the past novels, I was able to extract a theme from the text, through the title. The 'secret' place has many meanings throughout the story, from the literal place that is used by the girls to air their private sentiments to the as yet unattainable Murder Squad job that Moran seeks. One might also find that these girls are seeking the secret place as a meeting spot to encounter Chris Harper or more metaphorically the 'place' in his heart. As the investigation proves intense and Frank Mackey makes an appearance, the reader might wonder if the 'secret' place could be thinking someone could be so dark as to travel down a path thought impossible before. However the reader chooses to interpret it, the dynamic between the girls, the police, and the overall mystery is formidable and should give the reader a high-impact mystery with the most unpredictable of characters. If it has not been clear up to this point of the review, or my sentiments in all books of the series, this is a must-read for anyone who has patience and interest in superior thriller novels.
Kudos, Madam French for proving how versatile you are and how the ideas seem never-ending. I am excited to get to the next novel, though it is a little sad that the binge is almost done.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
As absorbing as these books have become, I sometimes find myself wondering when the other shoe will drop. Will French run out of ideas and have to replicate a plot or premise? I have yet to find that concern and her continued variety has me feeling constantly refreshed. Somewhat of a thriller and police procedural nut, I have been around the block and French stands leaps and bounds ahead of many other authors in the genre. Her constant rotation of protagonists proved even more effective here, as she broke the pattern of finding a minor character from the previous book and looked two novels earlier. She also chose to incorporate three past characters in the story, which forces series fans to remember the nuances that both Mackeys and Moran brought to the aforementioned third book in the series. The cast of school girls was also a significant feat and that it was done so well (and offered a variety of characters even within the group) speaks to French's superior writing abilities. As with the past novels, I was able to extract a theme from the text, through the title. The 'secret' place has many meanings throughout the story, from the literal place that is used by the girls to air their private sentiments to the as yet unattainable Murder Squad job that Moran seeks. One might also find that these girls are seeking the secret place as a meeting spot to encounter Chris Harper or more metaphorically the 'place' in his heart. As the investigation proves intense and Frank Mackey makes an appearance, the reader might wonder if the 'secret' place could be thinking someone could be so dark as to travel down a path thought impossible before. However the reader chooses to interpret it, the dynamic between the girls, the police, and the overall mystery is formidable and should give the reader a high-impact mystery with the most unpredictable of characters. If it has not been clear up to this point of the review, or my sentiments in all books of the series, this is a must-read for anyone who has patience and interest in superior thriller novels.
Kudos, Madam French for proving how versatile you are and how the ideas seem never-ending. I am excited to get to the next novel, though it is a little sad that the binge is almost done.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
June 26, 2023
Here’s how I imagine it went down:
French and her besties are at their high school reunion weekend. They’re sitting around drinking wine and reminiscing when someone decides to pull out the old ouija board from the attic storage. Much to their surprise, they channel Agatha Christie’s voice from Cat Among the Pigeons Flush with success, they try again, and discover Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes ( my review).
Alright; maybe I just have my own upcoming reunion on my mind. But I was captivated by the way The Secret Place integrated the turbulent days of youth at a girls’ boarding school with a murder investigation by Dublin’s finest, proving again that French has talent in spades. If there is one thing her prior four books in the Murder Squad series have made clear, French is great at character creation. And atmosphere. Oh, and dialogue. Okay, fine; she’s good at all the components that make a book enjoyable. This time she’s also nailed the police procedural aspects of the case.
The story begins with Holly and her three friends hanging at a playground, musing on the end of summer and their upcoming year together at boarding school. Fast forward to Detective Stephen Moran at the Cold Cases Unit. Holly appears at the police station requesting a meeting with him, six years after when they last met in events covered by The Faithful Place. The exclusive boarding school she resides at has a noticeboard where students can put up anonymous confessions. Holly has found a postcard with an old picture of murder victim Chris Harper. The words “I know who killed him” are pasted across in cut-out letters. Moran seizes the opportunity to wedge his foot in the door of the Murder Squad, and personally takes the note to the case’s lead detective, Antoinette Conway. As she is currently without a partner, he offers her the benefit of his disarming interview skills when she returns to the school to re-interview the students. What follows is an exploration of what led to the death and how the detectives retroactively piece the story together.
The plot timeline is unusual, as it combines the current investigation with viewpoints from the girls and from Chris during the prior year. The investigation takes place within one incredibly busy day, while the events in the girls’ lives cover the entire previous year at school. It’s an interesting kind of time shifting for a murder mystery, but I came to enjoy it. Instead of learning about the prior relationships and circumstances through flashbacks, we live it with four of the girls and the victim, bringing a heightened sense of doom to their daily lives.
Characterization is stellar. The introduction to Murder Squad Detective Conway:
“Antoinette Conway came in with a handful of paper, slammed the door with her elbow. Headed for her desk. Still that stride, keep up or fuck off… Just crossing that squad room, she said You want to make something of it? half a dozen ways.“
Or the (re-) introduction of Detective Frank Mackey:
“I know Holly’s da, a bit. Frank Mackey, Undercover. You go at him straight, he’ll dodge and come in sideways; you go at him sideways, he’ll charge head down.“
Marvelous, really; contrast that with the books that focus on the appearance of the character first, or contain long soliloquies where the character helpfully identifies their history and preferences. In the prior examples, French distills two very different personalities into brief thoughts, so that when we finally meet them, dialogue can be focused and snappy, but still shaded with the layers of meaning from knowing the character. It is a beautiful technique that mirrors real life; if you follow me through my day, I don’t muse on each person interact with; rather, our interactions are defined partially by our history and word choice describing it would reflect it. French’s writing captures that shading without huge, potentially distracting expository swathes.
One of the aspects I enjoyed most was the delicate balance between Moran and Conway. As her fierce personality is evident from the start, I was fascinated by Conway’s attempt to develop a working relationship with her. Initially, Moran is ingratiating himself out of expedience, but it becomes clear Conway understands his intentions. French does a nice job of keeping both Moran and the reader off-balance, guessing at what Conway thinks while having a sense of where it is going.
The setting is immersive, bringing back memories of adolescence in all its insecurities:
“Two years on, though, Becca still hates the Court. She hates the way you’re watched every second from every angle, eyes swarming over you like bugs, digging and gnawing, always a clutch of girls checking out your top or a huddle of guys checking out your whatever. No one ever stays still, at the Court, everyone’s constantly twisting and head-flicking, watching for the watchers, trying for the coolest pose.“
and glories:
“Darkness, and a million stars, and silence. The silence is too big for any of them to burst, so they don’t talk. They lie on the grass and feel their own moving breath and blood… Selena was right: this is nothing like the thrill of necking vodka or taking the piss out of Sister Ignatius… This is nothing to do with what anyone else in all the world would approve or forbid. This is all their own.“
It is worth noting for those who are new to French that while The Dublin Murder Squad is nominally a series, the connection is through the web of relationships in the police department. Each story tends to focus on a particular member of the squad and their emotional entanglement to the case at hand. Although they may reference events in a prior story, they usually aren’t spoilerish, nor is reading them in order needful. In this case, French seems to draw back from a detective’s emotional dissolution and instead focus on a more positive resolution.
I found The Secret Place to be a complex, satisfying story, delicately balanced between mystery and character story. There was no part that I was even considered skimming, as the flashbacks held as much interest as the police procedural. In fact, reviewing was a challenge, as I kept thumbing through my notes, tempted by my saved passages to re-read. Though I read an advance copy, I suspect this is one I’ll have to add to the paper library.
***********************************
Many thanks to NetGalley and Viking for providing me an advance copy to review. Quotes are taken from a galley copy and are subject to change in the published edition. Still, I think it gives a flavor of the evocative writing.
French and her besties are at their high school reunion weekend. They’re sitting around drinking wine and reminiscing when someone decides to pull out the old ouija board from the attic storage. Much to their surprise, they channel Agatha Christie’s voice from Cat Among the Pigeons Flush with success, they try again, and discover Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes ( my review).
Alright; maybe I just have my own upcoming reunion on my mind. But I was captivated by the way The Secret Place integrated the turbulent days of youth at a girls’ boarding school with a murder investigation by Dublin’s finest, proving again that French has talent in spades. If there is one thing her prior four books in the Murder Squad series have made clear, French is great at character creation. And atmosphere. Oh, and dialogue. Okay, fine; she’s good at all the components that make a book enjoyable. This time she’s also nailed the police procedural aspects of the case.
The story begins with Holly and her three friends hanging at a playground, musing on the end of summer and their upcoming year together at boarding school. Fast forward to Detective Stephen Moran at the Cold Cases Unit. Holly appears at the police station requesting a meeting with him, six years after when they last met in events covered by The Faithful Place. The exclusive boarding school she resides at has a noticeboard where students can put up anonymous confessions. Holly has found a postcard with an old picture of murder victim Chris Harper. The words “I know who killed him” are pasted across in cut-out letters. Moran seizes the opportunity to wedge his foot in the door of the Murder Squad, and personally takes the note to the case’s lead detective, Antoinette Conway. As she is currently without a partner, he offers her the benefit of his disarming interview skills when she returns to the school to re-interview the students. What follows is an exploration of what led to the death and how the detectives retroactively piece the story together.
The plot timeline is unusual, as it combines the current investigation with viewpoints from the girls and from Chris during the prior year. The investigation takes place within one incredibly busy day, while the events in the girls’ lives cover the entire previous year at school. It’s an interesting kind of time shifting for a murder mystery, but I came to enjoy it. Instead of learning about the prior relationships and circumstances through flashbacks, we live it with four of the girls and the victim, bringing a heightened sense of doom to their daily lives.
Characterization is stellar. The introduction to Murder Squad Detective Conway:
“Antoinette Conway came in with a handful of paper, slammed the door with her elbow. Headed for her desk. Still that stride, keep up or fuck off… Just crossing that squad room, she said You want to make something of it? half a dozen ways.“
Or the (re-) introduction of Detective Frank Mackey:
“I know Holly’s da, a bit. Frank Mackey, Undercover. You go at him straight, he’ll dodge and come in sideways; you go at him sideways, he’ll charge head down.“
Marvelous, really; contrast that with the books that focus on the appearance of the character first, or contain long soliloquies where the character helpfully identifies their history and preferences. In the prior examples, French distills two very different personalities into brief thoughts, so that when we finally meet them, dialogue can be focused and snappy, but still shaded with the layers of meaning from knowing the character. It is a beautiful technique that mirrors real life; if you follow me through my day, I don’t muse on each person interact with; rather, our interactions are defined partially by our history and word choice describing it would reflect it. French’s writing captures that shading without huge, potentially distracting expository swathes.
One of the aspects I enjoyed most was the delicate balance between Moran and Conway. As her fierce personality is evident from the start, I was fascinated by Conway’s attempt to develop a working relationship with her. Initially, Moran is ingratiating himself out of expedience, but it becomes clear Conway understands his intentions. French does a nice job of keeping both Moran and the reader off-balance, guessing at what Conway thinks while having a sense of where it is going.
The setting is immersive, bringing back memories of adolescence in all its insecurities:
“Two years on, though, Becca still hates the Court. She hates the way you’re watched every second from every angle, eyes swarming over you like bugs, digging and gnawing, always a clutch of girls checking out your top or a huddle of guys checking out your whatever. No one ever stays still, at the Court, everyone’s constantly twisting and head-flicking, watching for the watchers, trying for the coolest pose.“
and glories:
“Darkness, and a million stars, and silence. The silence is too big for any of them to burst, so they don’t talk. They lie on the grass and feel their own moving breath and blood… Selena was right: this is nothing like the thrill of necking vodka or taking the piss out of Sister Ignatius… This is nothing to do with what anyone else in all the world would approve or forbid. This is all their own.“
It is worth noting for those who are new to French that while The Dublin Murder Squad is nominally a series, the connection is through the web of relationships in the police department. Each story tends to focus on a particular member of the squad and their emotional entanglement to the case at hand. Although they may reference events in a prior story, they usually aren’t spoilerish, nor is reading them in order needful. In this case, French seems to draw back from a detective’s emotional dissolution and instead focus on a more positive resolution.
I found The Secret Place to be a complex, satisfying story, delicately balanced between mystery and character story. There was no part that I was even considered skimming, as the flashbacks held as much interest as the police procedural. In fact, reviewing was a challenge, as I kept thumbing through my notes, tempted by my saved passages to re-read. Though I read an advance copy, I suspect this is one I’ll have to add to the paper library.
***********************************
Many thanks to NetGalley and Viking for providing me an advance copy to review. Quotes are taken from a galley copy and are subject to change in the published edition. Still, I think it gives a flavor of the evocative writing.
September 9, 2014
Damn, 2014 seems so far away… :( I am pretty excited to hear that we will be seeing Frank again, I love him. Now all I really need is that Tana finally decides to bring back Rob and Cassie (preferably together) so they can make up :).
July 24, 2016
Who killed him? Well, I guessed pretty early on whodunnit (though it wasn't blindingly obvious) there WERE plenty of distractions to divert us along the way, although I got the motive wrong, so not that smart after all eh? HIM being a teenage boy found dead in the grounds of St Kilda's boarding school for girls, situated in a leafy suburb of Dublin. There are eight teenage girls in the frame, and any one of the little monsters ( sorry, teens ) could have been responsible for his death. The questioning of suspects/ witnesses takes place over a single day a year AFTER the murder, as it remained unsolved. If that sounds boring, believe me it isn't. There are chapters in between relating to events leading up to the present, which helped keep it fresh and interesting. The author has a gift for capturing perfectly the teen politics and dialogue and introduces us to some vicious little individuals. It has real suspense and was truly gripping at times. You know that feeling when you realise you've been holding your breath, and the hairs on the back of your neck are bristling? You've got that right here. Part of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series, this was a really good read, and I look forward to reading more from her.
*Thank you to Goodreads for this first reads giveaway for which I have given a fair and honest review*
*Thank you to Goodreads for this first reads giveaway for which I have given a fair and honest review*
October 8, 2014
Few other books have conjured up the ghost of my teenage years as successfully as this one, dredged up the hazy remembrance of that first, most agonizing heartbreak, the subsequent amateurish cynicism summoned up to preclude the hassle of emotional hangups and the feeling of having only just the foggiest notion of how the world works.
It is awe-inspiring how Tana French continues to incorporate such authentic sociocultural commentary into narratives which are usually taken to be written for the sole sake of providing cheap thrills. So blame her if I end up sounding like a smitten fangirl every time I review a book of hers. She is just that good even when she is writing out a logically fallacious scenario.
The teenage girls of 'The Secret Place' are much more than what C-grade teenybopper flicks and stereotype-riddled YA books make them out to be. They are capable of as much cruelty as kindness, as much self-sacrifice as vindictive selfishness. Here, the conniving, bitchy and backstabbing blonde isn't a cardboard cutout 'mean girl' symbolizing pure evil just as the archetypal good girls aren't as puritan. And a private boarding school turns into a zone of ineluctable conflict of interest where the realm of the personal frequently dovetails into that of the collective forming the intricate web of high school politics which governs the place implicitly.
More impressive is how the four girls who lie at the heart of the mystery do not let their budding sexualities define their lives, or even sacrifice individuality on the altar of some contrived requisites of 'coolness' which teenagers are prone to do since rarely do they know any better at that age. Instead, they defy odds to carve out a private utopia for themselves, a clique which doesn't require the glue of some common ideology to survive - a secret place neatly tucked away in an obscure corner of their minds where they can be wholly unabashed of the unflattering sides to their personalities, sure of the fact that they will have each other's backs even when the world goes to pieces.
In a way, the narrative of friendship and loyalty in the aftermath of a terrible crime is reminiscent of an earlier book in the series - The Likeness - which in turn was inspired by Donna Tartt's The Secret History. So fans of any of the former will be sucked right in even if they may have reservations about stories involving teenagers, specially teenage girls who are forever being dumbed down by writers looking to make a quick buck. Ms French here, true to her gift for impeccable characterization, adds many dimensions to their personalities.
As the common refrain goes, calling books of the Dublin Murder Squad series mere 'crime novels' is almost like an outrageous insult. And this one's certainly no exception in this regard. There are two parallel 'before' and 'after' narratives devoted to uncovering the truth of the same murder. A story of the tragic collapse of a close-knit group of teenage girls who, even while trapped in the complicated tangle of sexual politics, fight to ward off influences which threaten to destroy their fortress of solitude. A celebration of the bond of friendship, how powerful and all-consuming an affair it can be and how unpredictably it can turn dangerous and even life-threatening. And, in the end, a poignant tribute to those charged years of adolescence, a unique phase of our lives we look back on with equal parts terror and fondness.
It is awe-inspiring how Tana French continues to incorporate such authentic sociocultural commentary into narratives which are usually taken to be written for the sole sake of providing cheap thrills. So blame her if I end up sounding like a smitten fangirl every time I review a book of hers. She is just that good even when she is writing out a logically fallacious scenario.
The teenage girls of 'The Secret Place' are much more than what C-grade teenybopper flicks and stereotype-riddled YA books make them out to be. They are capable of as much cruelty as kindness, as much self-sacrifice as vindictive selfishness. Here, the conniving, bitchy and backstabbing blonde isn't a cardboard cutout 'mean girl' symbolizing pure evil just as the archetypal good girls aren't as puritan. And a private boarding school turns into a zone of ineluctable conflict of interest where the realm of the personal frequently dovetails into that of the collective forming the intricate web of high school politics which governs the place implicitly.
...a place like this is riddled with secrets but their shells are thin and it's crowded in here, they get bashed and jostled against each other; if you're not super-careful, then sooner or later they crack open and all the tender flesh comes spilling out.
More impressive is how the four girls who lie at the heart of the mystery do not let their budding sexualities define their lives, or even sacrifice individuality on the altar of some contrived requisites of 'coolness' which teenagers are prone to do since rarely do they know any better at that age. Instead, they defy odds to carve out a private utopia for themselves, a clique which doesn't require the glue of some common ideology to survive - a secret place neatly tucked away in an obscure corner of their minds where they can be wholly unabashed of the unflattering sides to their personalities, sure of the fact that they will have each other's backs even when the world goes to pieces.
...the whole point of the vow was for none of them to have to feel like this. The point was for one place in their lives to be impregnable. For just one kind of love to be stronger than any outside thing; to be safe.
In a way, the narrative of friendship and loyalty in the aftermath of a terrible crime is reminiscent of an earlier book in the series - The Likeness - which in turn was inspired by Donna Tartt's The Secret History. So fans of any of the former will be sucked right in even if they may have reservations about stories involving teenagers, specially teenage girls who are forever being dumbed down by writers looking to make a quick buck. Ms French here, true to her gift for impeccable characterization, adds many dimensions to their personalities.
As the common refrain goes, calling books of the Dublin Murder Squad series mere 'crime novels' is almost like an outrageous insult. And this one's certainly no exception in this regard. There are two parallel 'before' and 'after' narratives devoted to uncovering the truth of the same murder. A story of the tragic collapse of a close-knit group of teenage girls who, even while trapped in the complicated tangle of sexual politics, fight to ward off influences which threaten to destroy their fortress of solitude. A celebration of the bond of friendship, how powerful and all-consuming an affair it can be and how unpredictably it can turn dangerous and even life-threatening. And, in the end, a poignant tribute to those charged years of adolescence, a unique phase of our lives we look back on with equal parts terror and fondness.
They are a forever, a brief and mortal forever, a forever that will grow into their bones and be held inside them after it ends, intact, indestructible.
September 19, 2015
A boy is found murdered on the grounds of a girl's school. One year later, Holly Mackey drops a photograph into the lap of Stephen Moran, a Cold Case cop in Dublin, indicating someone at St. Kilda's knows who the killer was. He takes the photograph to the Murder Squad and gets paired with Detective Conway. Will this be Moran's big chance at getting on the Murder Squad or will the case tear him apart?
The Secret Place is Tana French's fifth entry in the Dublin Murder Squad books and the last to date. It's also kind of a step back after the events of Broken Harbour. I shall explain eventually.
The Secret Place, while a murder mystery at first glance, is an exploration of the politics of being a teenage girl. Tana French mines deep into Megan Abbott territory in this one. Two groups of girls take center stage in Conway and Moran's investigation. About half of them are actually interesting.
Julia and Joanne, the two ringleaders, were the most interesting characters in the book, not surprising since I found teenage girls pretty alien back when I was a teen. From their cliques to their opposing leadership styles, they painted a vivid picture of what life as a teenage girl must be like. Most of the other girls seemed like set dressing for most of the story.
The relationship between Conway and Moran was very well done and I enjoyed it immensely when Frank Mackey was added to the mix in the later chapters. Being something of a loner, I empathized with Stephen a lot of the time. I felt for Conway, too, gunning for her chance to finally prove herself to the guys on the Murder Squad.
While Tana French was at the top of her game in a technical sense in this outing, I did not like The Secret Place as much as its fore-bearers. For one thing, I disliked the shifting viewpoints, a departure from her previous outings. I understand what she was going for but it felt a little lazy in comparison to previous books. I liked how things unfolded but I would have preferred a different method.
My much bigger gripe was with the supernatural angle introduced around the 35% mark. Combining genres is something I normally enjoy, like mixing chocolate and peanut butter. In this case, it was more like finding a pubic hair in your omelet. It was completely unnecessary and brought me out of the story every time it was referenced.
I was pretty surprised at the big reveal, which was not actually a great shock since Tana French clearly has had my number since In the Woods. Like all of French's books, I was a little sad when the story was over, doubly sad in this case since I'm out of Tana French books. While it wasn't my favorite of hers, Tana French writes one hell of a book. Four out of five stars.
The Secret Place is Tana French's fifth entry in the Dublin Murder Squad books and the last to date. It's also kind of a step back after the events of Broken Harbour. I shall explain eventually.
The Secret Place, while a murder mystery at first glance, is an exploration of the politics of being a teenage girl. Tana French mines deep into Megan Abbott territory in this one. Two groups of girls take center stage in Conway and Moran's investigation. About half of them are actually interesting.
Julia and Joanne, the two ringleaders, were the most interesting characters in the book, not surprising since I found teenage girls pretty alien back when I was a teen. From their cliques to their opposing leadership styles, they painted a vivid picture of what life as a teenage girl must be like. Most of the other girls seemed like set dressing for most of the story.
The relationship between Conway and Moran was very well done and I enjoyed it immensely when Frank Mackey was added to the mix in the later chapters. Being something of a loner, I empathized with Stephen a lot of the time. I felt for Conway, too, gunning for her chance to finally prove herself to the guys on the Murder Squad.
While Tana French was at the top of her game in a technical sense in this outing, I did not like The Secret Place as much as its fore-bearers. For one thing, I disliked the shifting viewpoints, a departure from her previous outings. I understand what she was going for but it felt a little lazy in comparison to previous books. I liked how things unfolded but I would have preferred a different method.
My much bigger gripe was with the supernatural angle introduced around the 35% mark. Combining genres is something I normally enjoy, like mixing chocolate and peanut butter. In this case, it was more like finding a pubic hair in your omelet. It was completely unnecessary and brought me out of the story every time it was referenced.
I was pretty surprised at the big reveal, which was not actually a great shock since Tana French clearly has had my number since In the Woods. Like all of French's books, I was a little sad when the story was over, doubly sad in this case since I'm out of Tana French books. While it wasn't my favorite of hers, Tana French writes one hell of a book. Four out of five stars.
September 25, 2017
OMG, it was like HELLO? who killed Chris?
Tana French is the coolest writer this side of anywhere and her fifth entry in her fabulously well to do Dublin Murder Squad is the best one yet. Somehow, her writing just keeps getting better.
Detective Stephan Moran, from Faithful Place, and Holly Mackey, Frank Mackey’s daughter and also from Faithful Place, make this hypnotic and leaves the reader unwilling to put it down.
The relentless action begins when the picture of a murdered teenage boy is left on a bulletin board with a writing that declares “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM”. The murder the previous year, in an exclusive boarding school environment brimming over with rich kids and mean girls, had been unsolved, so Moran in the cold case division teams up with badass Murder Squad detective Antoinette Conway, for a ONE DAY murder investigation nail biter.
French spins this web a little different than the earlier four. Still told in first person perspective by the narrator and central protagonist, but here she mixes thing up with two time perspectives, with the earlier one from an omniscient narration and an ongoing count down until Chris Harper dies.
Like all of her books in this series so far, it is a murder mystery, but also so much more. This is about friendship, loyalty, the transition from childhood to adulthood, the haves versus the have nots, class distinctions, and Ireland today.
There is an old Irish saying that a friend will help you hide, but a good friend will help you hide a body. French artfully illustrates this sentiment and how generations of Irish subversive, oppressed counterculture is still relevant and really just part of human nature.
Going all the way back to 2007’s In the Woods, another aspect of her writing that is endearing is an undercurrent of the mystical, like a peripheral ghost more felt than seen.
Significant scenes in this work were cast in a druidical, witchy grove and I think this is intentional, drawing the reader into an otherworldly element, heightening the suspense.
The prep school setting and teenage characters made me think of The Cranberries song “The Rebels” and I heard Delores O’Riordan singing in her pretty Irish lilt as I read.
Tana French is the coolest writer this side of anywhere and her fifth entry in her fabulously well to do Dublin Murder Squad is the best one yet. Somehow, her writing just keeps getting better.
Detective Stephan Moran, from Faithful Place, and Holly Mackey, Frank Mackey’s daughter and also from Faithful Place, make this hypnotic and leaves the reader unwilling to put it down.
The relentless action begins when the picture of a murdered teenage boy is left on a bulletin board with a writing that declares “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM”. The murder the previous year, in an exclusive boarding school environment brimming over with rich kids and mean girls, had been unsolved, so Moran in the cold case division teams up with badass Murder Squad detective Antoinette Conway, for a ONE DAY murder investigation nail biter.
French spins this web a little different than the earlier four. Still told in first person perspective by the narrator and central protagonist, but here she mixes thing up with two time perspectives, with the earlier one from an omniscient narration and an ongoing count down until Chris Harper dies.
Like all of her books in this series so far, it is a murder mystery, but also so much more. This is about friendship, loyalty, the transition from childhood to adulthood, the haves versus the have nots, class distinctions, and Ireland today.
There is an old Irish saying that a friend will help you hide, but a good friend will help you hide a body. French artfully illustrates this sentiment and how generations of Irish subversive, oppressed counterculture is still relevant and really just part of human nature.
Going all the way back to 2007’s In the Woods, another aspect of her writing that is endearing is an undercurrent of the mystical, like a peripheral ghost more felt than seen.
Significant scenes in this work were cast in a druidical, witchy grove and I think this is intentional, drawing the reader into an otherworldly element, heightening the suspense.
The prep school setting and teenage characters made me think of The Cranberries song “The Rebels” and I heard Delores O’Riordan singing in her pretty Irish lilt as I read.
June 23, 2023
I've read a lot of "best of Tana French" book lists and most of them think this is one of her least effective. I agree that it's not in the caliber of In the Woods or Broken Harbor but it's still very good. What most of the people complain about is the teen slang, or the mediocre voice and thoughts of Detective Steve Moran.
Neither of those things upset me. I thought Moran came across as a reasonable person, especially compared to the hard-as-brass knuckles, Detective Conway. Detective Conway, also used a lot more slang than the girls, because she is from an impoverished background. She hated the girls and their posh boarding school on principle, while Moran found it beautiful. I would probably hate them and it too, but I hope I wouldn't be as openly hostile as Conway. Cops are supposed to be impartial.
The supernatural element was odd and not believable to me. I would have rather that the girls made their vow and were empowered not by their pseudo "powers", but by their faith in each other. I liked Becca wearing jeans to the dance, more that sort of thing and less magic.
Neither of those things upset me. I thought Moran came across as a reasonable person, especially compared to the hard-as-brass knuckles, Detective Conway. Detective Conway, also used a lot more slang than the girls, because she is from an impoverished background. She hated the girls and their posh boarding school on principle, while Moran found it beautiful. I would probably hate them and it too, but I hope I wouldn't be as openly hostile as Conway. Cops are supposed to be impartial.
The supernatural element was odd and not believable to me. I would have rather that the girls made their vow and were empowered not by their pseudo "powers", but by their faith in each other. I liked Becca wearing jeans to the dance, more that sort of thing and less magic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 2, 2024
Instantly a close second favorite of this series. The Secret Place follows case investigators Stephen Moran and Antoinette Conway as they attempt to unravel the unsolved murder of a boy the year previous. At the center of it all lie two groups of girls: the odd girls, Selena, Becca, Julia, and Holly, and the other four, Joanne, Orla, Gemma, and Alison.
The strength of this novel comes in the same as the strength of The Likeness—in its ability to get the narrator invested in every character to the point of both not wanting them to be the killer, and almost hoping that if they are, they get away with it. Characters are given sympathetic potential motivations. The interview montage with the four girls is a particularly brilliant piece of writing—I left with a perfect grasp on who each character could be, one that left me suspecting almost every one. There are two mysteries here: who did the card, and who did the murder, and the way the two play off each other is as brilliant as it is devastating.
I also just deeply and genuinely adore the development of the dynamic between Moran and Conway, an unlikely duo with a lot to learn about each other. The build of trust between the two of them is so smooth, so sharp, and so delicate. I love this book. I wish I could read this series over and over again.
(Also, I need to brag—I guessed it, both card and murder, and was not far off who knew what either. Not to flex or anything.)
Dublin Murder Squad: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
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I love beautiful; always have. I never saw why I should hate what I wish I had. Love it harder. Work your way closer. Clasp your hands around it tighter. Till you find a way to make it yours.
The strength of this novel comes in the same as the strength of The Likeness—in its ability to get the narrator invested in every character to the point of both not wanting them to be the killer, and almost hoping that if they are, they get away with it. Characters are given sympathetic potential motivations. The interview montage with the four girls is a particularly brilliant piece of writing—I left with a perfect grasp on who each character could be, one that left me suspecting almost every one. There are two mysteries here: who did the card, and who did the murder, and the way the two play off each other is as brilliant as it is devastating.
I also just deeply and genuinely adore the development of the dynamic between Moran and Conway, an unlikely duo with a lot to learn about each other. The build of trust between the two of them is so smooth, so sharp, and so delicate. I love this book. I wish I could read this series over and over again.
(Also, I need to brag—I guessed it, both card and murder, and was not far off who knew what either. Not to flex or anything.)
Dublin Murder Squad: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
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July 8, 2014
I received a copy of this book from Goodreads-giveaways and I wish I could have given it a better rating alas I was very disappointed.
Sadly I only managed to read 160 of the 518 pages in 12 days as I had got to the point that I couldn't bear to pick the book up to continue.
I previously read Broken Harbour and really liked it awarding it four stars.
In my opinion this novel is tedious, the characters easily forgettable, empty and shallow, hence I do not know who killed him and I don't want to know!
Sadly I only managed to read 160 of the 518 pages in 12 days as I had got to the point that I couldn't bear to pick the book up to continue.
I previously read Broken Harbour and really liked it awarding it four stars.
In my opinion this novel is tedious, the characters easily forgettable, empty and shallow, hence I do not know who killed him and I don't want to know!
June 17, 2017
I'm over this series.
I keep slugging through these books, hoping and hoping that the next one will finally be great, and with every single one I'm let down and disappointed. Worst of all, I keep thinking about all the other books I'd prefer to be reading. Ok, I think my rant is over.
Another case, another murder for the Dublin Murder Squad- this one brings back a few familiar faces with Det. Stephen Moran and Holly Mackey- the spry teenager whose father Frank Mackey was the lead detective in a previous book. Chris Harper is bashed over the head and there are 8 annoying girls involved. Who thrashed the detrimental blow? UGH- who cares?
The writing is good, and the characters are fleshed out, but somehow I just cannot connect to the characters or the writing. I'm thinking that this author is just not for me. These books are way too long and drawn out for an unsatisfactory ending. I honestly stopped caring about who did it halfway through, unfortunately I have a pet peeve about finishing every book I start, so found myself slugging through the end. Sorry Not Sorry for such a ranty review.
I keep slugging through these books, hoping and hoping that the next one will finally be great, and with every single one I'm let down and disappointed. Worst of all, I keep thinking about all the other books I'd prefer to be reading. Ok, I think my rant is over.
Another case, another murder for the Dublin Murder Squad- this one brings back a few familiar faces with Det. Stephen Moran and Holly Mackey- the spry teenager whose father Frank Mackey was the lead detective in a previous book. Chris Harper is bashed over the head and there are 8 annoying girls involved. Who thrashed the detrimental blow? UGH- who cares?
The writing is good, and the characters are fleshed out, but somehow I just cannot connect to the characters or the writing. I'm thinking that this author is just not for me. These books are way too long and drawn out for an unsatisfactory ending. I honestly stopped caring about who did it halfway through, unfortunately I have a pet peeve about finishing every book I start, so found myself slugging through the end. Sorry Not Sorry for such a ranty review.
June 11, 2017
1,5 STARS
I had hopes of continuing the "high" after reading Tana French's previous book, Broken Harbor, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... which I really liked...but sadly no......The Secret Place, 5th in her Dublin Murder Squad Series...was a total not hit but a total MISS...
This was a cold case....the Murder Square had not been able to solve the murder of a boy, whose body had been found in the grounds of an all girl's private school.
A year later, new evidence comes up in the form of a card with the boy's foto and message "I know who killed him."
Detective Stephen Moran from Cold Cases teams up with Dublin Murder Squad's Detective Antoinette Conway to open up the investigation again.
Despite me liking Tana French's writing and the two main characters, I just could not get into this book.
Slow, tedious and far too many flashbacks....and far too much information and descriptions that felt had no added value to the story.
I mentioned before that I liked Detective Stephen Moran and Detective Antoinette Conway...but the rest of the sooooooooo toooooooooo many characters were beyond boring and irritating...
I had hopes of continuing the "high" after reading Tana French's previous book, Broken Harbor, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... which I really liked...but sadly no......The Secret Place, 5th in her Dublin Murder Squad Series...was a total not hit but a total MISS...
This was a cold case....the Murder Square had not been able to solve the murder of a boy, whose body had been found in the grounds of an all girl's private school.
A year later, new evidence comes up in the form of a card with the boy's foto and message "I know who killed him."
Detective Stephen Moran from Cold Cases teams up with Dublin Murder Squad's Detective Antoinette Conway to open up the investigation again.
Despite me liking Tana French's writing and the two main characters, I just could not get into this book.
Slow, tedious and far too many flashbacks....and far too much information and descriptions that felt had no added value to the story.
I mentioned before that I liked Detective Stephen Moran and Detective Antoinette Conway...but the rest of the sooooooooo toooooooooo many characters were beyond boring and irritating...
“Alison’s mum has had a lot of plastic surgery and she wears fake eyelashes the size of hairbrushes. She looks sort of like a person but not really, like someone explained to aliens what a person is and they did their best to make one of their own.”After a while, reading more and more about the annoying and empty schoolgirls...I was like..... .I don't give a toss who killed the boy...in fact, kill all the girls as well.... just kidding!!! But most if not all of them were so on the surface...
“ “If I've learned one thing today, it's that teenage girls make Moriarty look like a babe in the woods."Not my favorite in this series.
January 29, 2018
This was the first Tana French book that I didn't love wholeheartedly. I still liked the murder mystery, which is set at a preppy girls school, but the abundance of teen speak made this a less satisfying read.
I did like the introduction of Detective Antoinette Conway (who becomes the focus of book 6, "The Trespasser") and her earnest young partner, Stephen Moran. The pair have a good chemistry and it was fun to see them adjust to working together.
My minor complaint about the dialogue in this book noted, in the whole genre of murder mysteries, I would rate Tana French as among the best at writing compelling literary thrillers. I would still highly recommend her Dublin Murder Squad series, but I wouldn't have you start with "The Secret Place." Instead, start with book one, "In the Woods," to see how the series begins.
I did like the introduction of Detective Antoinette Conway (who becomes the focus of book 6, "The Trespasser") and her earnest young partner, Stephen Moran. The pair have a good chemistry and it was fun to see them adjust to working together.
My minor complaint about the dialogue in this book noted, in the whole genre of murder mysteries, I would rate Tana French as among the best at writing compelling literary thrillers. I would still highly recommend her Dublin Murder Squad series, but I wouldn't have you start with "The Secret Place." Instead, start with book one, "In the Woods," to see how the series begins.
February 10, 2017
EDIT - After giving this more thought, I have had to admit that this was a miss by Tana French's high standards. The fact is, even though it was not nearly as good as her other work, it was still great. If this were the first Tana French novel you were to read, you would not get the true Tana French experience. I have reduced my rating by 1 Star.
Posted to The Literary Lawyer.ca
Bronze Gavel for Best Novel of 2014
My #9 Read of 2014
A Rare but Excellent Miss - 4 Stars
I have not hidden the fact that I am an unashamed Tana French fanboy. It is hard not to gush when it feels that all she does is weave magic in the pages of each novel. Tana French has the uncanny ability to create compelling characters which she methodically dissects and breaks down to their components parts. For my money, Tana French writes the best character novels in the business. After a small misstep, with her previous novel, Broken Harbor, Tana French is back with one her best offerings to date.
Plot summary
In a break from the format of her previous novels, The Secret Place follows the point of view of at least 6 characters with a focus on two major players, Detective Stephan Moran and Holly Mackey, a student a St. Kilda's boarding school and the daughter of Tana's most popular character, Frank Mackey.
The story opens with Holly approaching Stephen with a card that indicates that an unknown person knows who killed a young male student on the grounds of the girls boarding school over a year before. Stephen has designs on joining the murder squad and approaches the lead detective and murder squad pariah, Antoinette Conway, with an offer to help.
The novel covers one 24 hour period with extensive use of flashback to the months before the murder. We follow the investigation and the dynamics between two circles of friends at St. Kilda's boarding school. This novel mixes a police procedural with an excellent coming of age story. As usual, Tana French explores the many concepts of family and power of secrets to create and destroy.
My Take
When you pick up a Tana French novel, you are in for the long haul. The pace is leisurely and the route to completion is scenic. The focus of the novel is the characters and how the experience surrounding the crime permanently alter their lives. Personally, I enjoy the slow developing story but this will certainly be a turn off for some readers.
It should be no surprise that I have never been a teenage girl. It is my fervent belief that no man or boy can truly understand the enigma that is the teenage girl. Tana French enters the minds of these mysterious creatures and explores the bonds of friendship, the fights, the meanness and excitement of growing up. She does an excellent job of presenting the often skewed perspective of youth and has written one of the best coming of age stories in recent memory.
If there can be any criticism of French's writing is that extreme focus on character building is to the detriment of the plot. In The Secret Place, she seems to have taken this criticism to heart and has structured one of the strongest and best developed plots in the series. While she constantly shifts perspective in the book, she essentially tells two stories. The first being the story of the investigation and the relationship and friendship between the investigators and secondly, and more importantly, the story of friendship between Holly Mackey and the three other girls in her clique.
If you have read and liked another other Tana French novel than I guarantee you will love this one. As in most of her novels, this installment can be read as a stand alone. Stephan Moran played a bit part in a previous novel but that plays only a minor role in the plot. You can pick this one up and dive right in.
As far as I am concerned, if you haven't read a Tana French novel, you are missing out on an excellent reading experience. She takes the crime suspense thriller and police procedural into the realm of literary fiction. She eloquently explores the world in which she has created and unpacks the psychological underpinnings of the decisions and actions of her characters. While the ride may be scenic, the trip is beautiful and well worth your time.
Content Advisories
It is difficult to find commentary on the sex/violence/language content of book if you are interested. I make an effort to give you the information so you can make an informed decision before reading. *Disclaimer* I do not take note or count the occurrences of adult language as I read. I am simply giving approximations.
Scale 1 - Lowest 5 - Highest
Sex - 2
The book deals with teenagers. Sex takes high priority in their thought process. That said, there is nothing graphic and all sexual content is relatively innocent. The content is generally the use of sexual terms and discussion of body parts.
Language - 3
Tana French writes with the slang and cadence of her native Ireland. There may well be terms used that are considered adult language in Ireland but completely lost on me. There was moderate use of mild adult language and low to moderate use of the f-word.
Violence - 1.5
The focus of the investigation is a violent crime. That said, this is only in the background and there is very little violent content in the story.
Posted to The Literary Lawyer.ca
Bronze Gavel for Best Novel of 2014
My #9 Read of 2014
A Rare but Excellent Miss - 4 Stars
I have not hidden the fact that I am an unashamed Tana French fanboy. It is hard not to gush when it feels that all she does is weave magic in the pages of each novel. Tana French has the uncanny ability to create compelling characters which she methodically dissects and breaks down to their components parts. For my money, Tana French writes the best character novels in the business. After a small misstep, with her previous novel, Broken Harbor, Tana French is back with one her best offerings to date.
Plot summary
In a break from the format of her previous novels, The Secret Place follows the point of view of at least 6 characters with a focus on two major players, Detective Stephan Moran and Holly Mackey, a student a St. Kilda's boarding school and the daughter of Tana's most popular character, Frank Mackey.
The story opens with Holly approaching Stephen with a card that indicates that an unknown person knows who killed a young male student on the grounds of the girls boarding school over a year before. Stephen has designs on joining the murder squad and approaches the lead detective and murder squad pariah, Antoinette Conway, with an offer to help.
The novel covers one 24 hour period with extensive use of flashback to the months before the murder. We follow the investigation and the dynamics between two circles of friends at St. Kilda's boarding school. This novel mixes a police procedural with an excellent coming of age story. As usual, Tana French explores the many concepts of family and power of secrets to create and destroy.
My Take
When you pick up a Tana French novel, you are in for the long haul. The pace is leisurely and the route to completion is scenic. The focus of the novel is the characters and how the experience surrounding the crime permanently alter their lives. Personally, I enjoy the slow developing story but this will certainly be a turn off for some readers.
It should be no surprise that I have never been a teenage girl. It is my fervent belief that no man or boy can truly understand the enigma that is the teenage girl. Tana French enters the minds of these mysterious creatures and explores the bonds of friendship, the fights, the meanness and excitement of growing up. She does an excellent job of presenting the often skewed perspective of youth and has written one of the best coming of age stories in recent memory.
If there can be any criticism of French's writing is that extreme focus on character building is to the detriment of the plot. In The Secret Place, she seems to have taken this criticism to heart and has structured one of the strongest and best developed plots in the series. While she constantly shifts perspective in the book, she essentially tells two stories. The first being the story of the investigation and the relationship and friendship between the investigators and secondly, and more importantly, the story of friendship between Holly Mackey and the three other girls in her clique.
If you have read and liked another other Tana French novel than I guarantee you will love this one. As in most of her novels, this installment can be read as a stand alone. Stephan Moran played a bit part in a previous novel but that plays only a minor role in the plot. You can pick this one up and dive right in.
As far as I am concerned, if you haven't read a Tana French novel, you are missing out on an excellent reading experience. She takes the crime suspense thriller and police procedural into the realm of literary fiction. She eloquently explores the world in which she has created and unpacks the psychological underpinnings of the decisions and actions of her characters. While the ride may be scenic, the trip is beautiful and well worth your time.
Content Advisories
It is difficult to find commentary on the sex/violence/language content of book if you are interested. I make an effort to give you the information so you can make an informed decision before reading. *Disclaimer* I do not take note or count the occurrences of adult language as I read. I am simply giving approximations.
Scale 1 - Lowest 5 - Highest
Sex - 2
The book deals with teenagers. Sex takes high priority in their thought process. That said, there is nothing graphic and all sexual content is relatively innocent. The content is generally the use of sexual terms and discussion of body parts.
Language - 3
Tana French writes with the slang and cadence of her native Ireland. There may well be terms used that are considered adult language in Ireland but completely lost on me. There was moderate use of mild adult language and low to moderate use of the f-word.
Violence - 1.5
The focus of the investigation is a violent crime. That said, this is only in the background and there is very little violent content in the story.
April 28, 2020
I’m a fan of Tana French but I don’t seem to read her books as often as I’d like. After months, this one became available from the library as an audio book.
Stephen Moran gets his chance to join the Dublin Homicide squad when a young girl shows up with a clue concerning the murder of a teenage boy the year prior. The book gives us two alternative story lines. Steven’s present day story as he works with Antoinette Conway. And then the historical view of the students of a posh girls’ boarding school where the boy's body was found. The girls are catty, cliquish and extremely annoying. French gets their slang down perfectly (as do both the narrators) - this combo of snarky and simpering and always grating. Hello...whatever...oh my god…. She also gets the loyalties, the jealousies, the hormones.
I was much more interested in Moran and Conway, especially as they learn to work together. They’re both strong personalities. We spend a lot of time in Moran’s head and it’s a very enjoyable place to be. These sections of the book are five star worthy. It’s like watching psychological warfare, as the detectives try to make inroads into the girls’ hidden secrets. I wasn’t as invested in the girls’ sections, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t impressed with her ability to flesh them out so perfectly.
This story had me running in circles. My opinion about who was the murderer changed multiple times.
A thoroughly enjoyable book that reminded me I need to get back to reading or listening to more of French’s works.
One complaint about the audiobook is that Laura Hutchinson is not able to provide a real distinction between girls’ and boys’ voices making it difficult to suss out who’s talking at times.
Stephen Moran gets his chance to join the Dublin Homicide squad when a young girl shows up with a clue concerning the murder of a teenage boy the year prior. The book gives us two alternative story lines. Steven’s present day story as he works with Antoinette Conway. And then the historical view of the students of a posh girls’ boarding school where the boy's body was found. The girls are catty, cliquish and extremely annoying. French gets their slang down perfectly (as do both the narrators) - this combo of snarky and simpering and always grating. Hello...whatever...oh my god…. She also gets the loyalties, the jealousies, the hormones.
I was much more interested in Moran and Conway, especially as they learn to work together. They’re both strong personalities. We spend a lot of time in Moran’s head and it’s a very enjoyable place to be. These sections of the book are five star worthy. It’s like watching psychological warfare, as the detectives try to make inroads into the girls’ hidden secrets. I wasn’t as invested in the girls’ sections, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t impressed with her ability to flesh them out so perfectly.
This story had me running in circles. My opinion about who was the murderer changed multiple times.
A thoroughly enjoyable book that reminded me I need to get back to reading or listening to more of French’s works.
One complaint about the audiobook is that Laura Hutchinson is not able to provide a real distinction between girls’ and boys’ voices making it difficult to suss out who’s talking at times.
February 13, 2016
To begin this review I will simply say: I didn’t like this book. I believe the author/publishers have made a massive advertising campaign to get this book “out there.” This made my initial expectations very high and this book just fell flat.
Ok, so we have an all-girl school in which a visiting boy has been mysteriously killed. The case has gone cold, a year has passed. New evidence appears so the detectives are sent to investigate again. They question several students and we begin to see the differences in high school teenagers: we have the “in crowd” and the “weirdoes.” After a couple hundred pages of questioning these girls and plucking at flimsy evidence, I found myself answering the authors question as to who killed him with: I really don’t care!
For a book that is supposed to be full of suspense, seems to have a complete lack of suspense. I just couldn’t go on with this. I understand that the author has managed to capture the essence of stereotypical teenagers but they're just not worth reading about. I would much prefer to read a murder investigation in a grown up world not one of gossiping children.
Goodreads winner.
Ok, so we have an all-girl school in which a visiting boy has been mysteriously killed. The case has gone cold, a year has passed. New evidence appears so the detectives are sent to investigate again. They question several students and we begin to see the differences in high school teenagers: we have the “in crowd” and the “weirdoes.” After a couple hundred pages of questioning these girls and plucking at flimsy evidence, I found myself answering the authors question as to who killed him with: I really don’t care!
For a book that is supposed to be full of suspense, seems to have a complete lack of suspense. I just couldn’t go on with this. I understand that the author has managed to capture the essence of stereotypical teenagers but they're just not worth reading about. I would much prefer to read a murder investigation in a grown up world not one of gossiping children.
Goodreads winner.
August 20, 2014
Detective Frank Mackey had been Detective Stephen Moran’s boss at one stage, so when he was confronted with Mackey’s sixteen year old daughter Holly at the station, he wasn’t sure why she was there, or what she wanted of him. Holly had been a material witness for Moran some years previously and he hadn’t seen her since then. But Holly had a photo to give to Stephen Moran – a photo of Chris Harper who had been murdered at St Kilda, Holly’s school, a year ago – on it was stuck letters which appeared to be cut out from a magazine saying “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM”; it was a case which hadn’t been solved.
After Holly’s explanation about “The Secret Place”, where students of the girls’ school could post various secrets in an anonymous fashion, Moran headed over to the Murder Squad to find Detective Antoinette Conway who had been in charge of the case twelve months previously. Conway was an abrupt and some would say, exceedingly rude person, but Moran hadn’t had much to do with her in his time on the job. He worked in Cold Cases but would love an opportunity to work in the Murder Squad. This might be his chance – if he was able to survive Conway’s personality…
As Conway and Moran conducted their interviews at St Kilda’s they discovered they were up against a tangled mishmash of lies, deception and a loyalty to their friends which surpassed anything else. There were two groups of four girls who were bitter rivals – the very slight and circumstantial evidence pointed toward these eight girls as the ones who must have had something to do with Chris’ death. But digging deeper was proving to be a challenge – their frustration was immense. And as they planned to stay at St Kilda’s until an answer of some sort was reached, it was going to be a very long day…
I’m afraid I was disappointed in this book. It was extremely long-winded and drawn out – in my opinion the complete story could have been told in half the amount of pages. The plot was great – I really enjoyed the actual story, but did a fair amount of skimming of what was to my mind unnecessary “stuff”. I found it very different to the author’s previous works, of which I loved.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.
After Holly’s explanation about “The Secret Place”, where students of the girls’ school could post various secrets in an anonymous fashion, Moran headed over to the Murder Squad to find Detective Antoinette Conway who had been in charge of the case twelve months previously. Conway was an abrupt and some would say, exceedingly rude person, but Moran hadn’t had much to do with her in his time on the job. He worked in Cold Cases but would love an opportunity to work in the Murder Squad. This might be his chance – if he was able to survive Conway’s personality…
As Conway and Moran conducted their interviews at St Kilda’s they discovered they were up against a tangled mishmash of lies, deception and a loyalty to their friends which surpassed anything else. There were two groups of four girls who were bitter rivals – the very slight and circumstantial evidence pointed toward these eight girls as the ones who must have had something to do with Chris’ death. But digging deeper was proving to be a challenge – their frustration was immense. And as they planned to stay at St Kilda’s until an answer of some sort was reached, it was going to be a very long day…
I’m afraid I was disappointed in this book. It was extremely long-winded and drawn out – in my opinion the complete story could have been told in half the amount of pages. The plot was great – I really enjoyed the actual story, but did a fair amount of skimming of what was to my mind unnecessary “stuff”. I found it very different to the author’s previous works, of which I loved.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.
November 26, 2019
Every time I read one of Tana French's books I say, 'this is her best novel ever!' and I want to go back to the last book I read of hers and take away a star (Because the one I just read was the BEST). Anyway, "The Secret Place" was by far her best in the Dublin Murder Squad series so far. The character development was perfect. And the intrigue never let up. Can you guess who did it? :-D
November 14, 2021
In this 5th book in the 'Dublin Murder Squad' series, a prep school student is murdered, and teenagers get up to all kinds of devilry. The book can be read as a standalone.
*****
Two classy British boarding schools, St. Kilda's for girls and St. Colm’s for boys are located close enough together that the students mingle on a regular basis.
When tragedy strikes and Chris Harper - a handsome boy from St. Colm's - is found murdered on the grounds of St. Kilda's, the case remains unsolved. About a year later a St. Kilda's student named Holly Mackey, the daughter of a detective, finds a photo of Chris on a school bulletin board. The photo has cut-out letters that spell 'I know who killed him'.
Holly takes the card to Detective Stephen Moran of the cold case squad who arranges to investigate with Detective Antoinette Conroy of the murder squad.
The main 'suspects' for who placed the card on the bulletin board are two groups of friends. One group contains 'the snobby girls', who think it's their right to date the most desirable boys from St. Colm's. The other group contains 'the nice girls' who make an oath to stick together and forsake boyfriends from St. Colm's - who they consider a bad lot who take advantage of girls and blab about it.
The book is told in alternating scenes: in the present, the detectives repeatedly question the girls to find out what they know; in flashbacks we see the interactions among the teen girls and boys from the private schools: posturing at the local shopping mall; budding romance at the St. Valentine's dance; sneaking out of school to meet up; secret phones for texting; etc. I have to admit I was entertained (and sometimes annoyed) by the lingo the girls use when they speak to each other and to the detectives. Sassy, fun, sometimes mean - and almost always disrespectful to adults.
Of course it's impossible for teen girls to ignore nearby boys - no matter what they promise - and a number of relationships flourish and wane among the students of St. Kilda's and St. Colm's. Jealousies arise, people spy on each other, girls get protective, girls get furious, threats are made, and so on. Is this related to Chris's death? Well...yes.
I've enjoyed Tana French's previous books but this wasn't a favorite for me. The detective work, which consisted almost entirely of talking to the girls on the school grounds, became tedious. I would have liked more moving around and forensics. Also, I didn't especially like or care about the characters. The snobby girls were unbearable and even the nice girls weren't particularly sympathetic. I also thought these girls - 15 and 16 years old - seemed too young to engage in the level of devilry they got up to.
The resolution of the crime wasn't completely satisfactory either; I felt it didn't flow smoothly from the rest of the book. Nevertheless, I'd mildly recommend the book to fans of Tana French; as usual with her books, familiar characters from past books show up in current ones and it's good to see what's going on with them.
You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com/
June 5, 2019
Tana French writes another suspenseful mystery about a school full of girls, a murder and, of course, the Dublin Murder Squad.
"Detective Moran, there's someone to see you," pen pointing at the sofa. "Miss Holly Mackey." pg 15, ebook.
We're reintroduced to Stephen Moran and Holly Mackey, whom readers of the series will remember from Faithful Place. I highly suggest reading that book before this. The context is part of what makes The Secret Place so powerful.
Like in her previous books, French builds the suspense through in-depth characters and internal monologues. They carry an intensity that I've come to expect from her novels. Reading her stories straight through honestly gives me a bit of a headache. They're so complex and she brings in small details that give you these "aha" moments.
Despite those potential headaches, I love it.
I said, "You came here because there's something you want me to know. I'm not going to play guessing games I can't win. If you're not sure you want to tell me, then go away and have a think till you are. If you're sure now, then spit it out." Holly approved of that. Almost smiled again; nodded instead. pg 18, ebook
She's also a master at building relationships, not just between the investigating detectives, but between the readers and the story. There's a trust there — that she's not just leading you down this path to distract you. There's something important you're supposed to realize.
In The Secret Place, readers are asked to contemplate the unknowable reality of young adult friendships. We wade right in to passionate, explosive moments that aren't that big of a deal, if you're not the right age. The feeling, no the knowing, that magic is real is a large part of this story. Also, that friendships define you somehow and are more real than your grades or your family or your name even.
Friends delineate the boundaries of your world at that age. And, together, you can literally make magic happen, if they're the right kind of friends and if you do the right mystical things together like, for example, sneaking outside of a locked, private school to sit in a wooded glade and gaze at the stars.
"Girls need a safety valve, Detective Conway. Do you recall, a week or so after the incident" — small snort of laughter from Conway: incident —"a group of students claimed to have seen Christopher Harper's ghost? pg 59
As much as I loved this book, I understand readers who didn't. It is self indulgent in the sense that you get to know almost everything about everyone and when you're dealing with a dozen main characters, that's a lot.
I got the feeling, when Moran was on his eighth interview, that there had been a lot of talk about editing that section down, but it wasn't. As I said, this story hinges on the characters, why they feel the way they feel and why they acted the way they did. If you don't get to know those minutiae, then the story isn't as intense.
But, admittedly, it does slow the pace waaaaay down.
There's also the "living in a teenager wasteland" feeling of the story. Who cares about who's dating who and who's wearing what. To get through some of it, I put myself into the mindset of the detectives. It was important to understand because murder was on the line. Someone killed someone else and was walking around like nothing happened, while his victim was forever buried in the ground. There's your motivation.
I think I could listen to a lot of gum-chewing nonsense to solve something that important.
My favorite character? Detective Stephen Moran. He has so much to lose and so much to prove. All he wants is to do a good job on this case. And that seems so impossible at times. I was cheering for him all the way.
"For the first time, she smiled. Little crunch of a grin, the same one I remembered. It had had something pathetic in it, back then, it had caught at me every time. It did again." pg 17, ebook.
Recommended for readers who have enjoyed French's work in the past. This murder-mystery may not appeal to everybody, but it did to me.
"Detective Moran, there's someone to see you," pen pointing at the sofa. "Miss Holly Mackey." pg 15, ebook.
We're reintroduced to Stephen Moran and Holly Mackey, whom readers of the series will remember from Faithful Place. I highly suggest reading that book before this. The context is part of what makes The Secret Place so powerful.
Like in her previous books, French builds the suspense through in-depth characters and internal monologues. They carry an intensity that I've come to expect from her novels. Reading her stories straight through honestly gives me a bit of a headache. They're so complex and she brings in small details that give you these "aha" moments.
Despite those potential headaches, I love it.
I said, "You came here because there's something you want me to know. I'm not going to play guessing games I can't win. If you're not sure you want to tell me, then go away and have a think till you are. If you're sure now, then spit it out." Holly approved of that. Almost smiled again; nodded instead. pg 18, ebook
She's also a master at building relationships, not just between the investigating detectives, but between the readers and the story. There's a trust there — that she's not just leading you down this path to distract you. There's something important you're supposed to realize.
In The Secret Place, readers are asked to contemplate the unknowable reality of young adult friendships. We wade right in to passionate, explosive moments that aren't that big of a deal, if you're not the right age. The feeling, no the knowing, that magic is real is a large part of this story. Also, that friendships define you somehow and are more real than your grades or your family or your name even.
Friends delineate the boundaries of your world at that age. And, together, you can literally make magic happen, if they're the right kind of friends and if you do the right mystical things together like, for example, sneaking outside of a locked, private school to sit in a wooded glade and gaze at the stars.
"Girls need a safety valve, Detective Conway. Do you recall, a week or so after the incident" — small snort of laughter from Conway: incident —"a group of students claimed to have seen Christopher Harper's ghost? pg 59
As much as I loved this book, I understand readers who didn't. It is self indulgent in the sense that you get to know almost everything about everyone and when you're dealing with a dozen main characters, that's a lot.
I got the feeling, when Moran was on his eighth interview, that there had been a lot of talk about editing that section down, but it wasn't. As I said, this story hinges on the characters, why they feel the way they feel and why they acted the way they did. If you don't get to know those minutiae, then the story isn't as intense.
But, admittedly, it does slow the pace waaaaay down.
There's also the "living in a teenager wasteland" feeling of the story. Who cares about who's dating who and who's wearing what. To get through some of it, I put myself into the mindset of the detectives. It was important to understand because murder was on the line. Someone killed someone else and was walking around like nothing happened, while his victim was forever buried in the ground. There's your motivation.
I think I could listen to a lot of gum-chewing nonsense to solve something that important.
My favorite character? Detective Stephen Moran. He has so much to lose and so much to prove. All he wants is to do a good job on this case. And that seems so impossible at times. I was cheering for him all the way.
"For the first time, she smiled. Little crunch of a grin, the same one I remembered. It had had something pathetic in it, back then, it had caught at me every time. It did again." pg 17, ebook.
Recommended for readers who have enjoyed French's work in the past. This murder-mystery may not appeal to everybody, but it did to me.
May 2, 2019
Bravo on another well written book by Tana French! What struck me the most was the spectacular character development in The Secret Place. This tale, in many aspects of dialogue and sentiment reminded me of Flynn's stunner, Sharp Objects. I seriously was catapulted back to my own teenage years whilst reading each and every word, remembering just how devious and cruel the teenage world had the potential of being on any given minute. Well done, Tana French!
December 23, 2022
The fifth novel by Tana French and #5 in a series narrated by a detective of or working with the Murder Squad in Dublin has the author racking the focus and interfering with the quality control that have made her series such a success. Opening one of French's novels is an act of treasure hunting, of thrills and wonder, like finding an old wooden chest in an attic and unlocking it to discover intimacy, secrecy, history, betrayal and redemption hidden inside. French's themes are back in black this time and a couple of artifacts await, but adjustments in her narration and ambiguity about who the protagonist was this time around left me somewhat wanting.
In this follow-up to In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place and Broken Harbor, French continues a beguiling pattern of retrieving a supporting character from previous novels and casting them as the narrator of the sequel. Published in 2014, The Secret Place focuses on Detective Stephen Moran, "first in my family to go for a Learning Cert instead of an apprenticeship." Moran has been promoted with rapid succession and at the age of thirty-two, is working on the Cold Cases squad in Dublin. Ambition is one of Moran's strengths, as well as his greatest potential weakness, and the lad has his laser sights set on Murder.
Opportunity knocks when Holly Mackey, the sixteen-year-old daughter of undercover detective Frank Mackey, pays Moran a visit. Six years ago, with events depicted in Faithful Place (my favorite French novel so far, by a nose), Moran was plucked out of the floater pool by the devious Mackey to update him on Murder's investigation into the death of Mackey's childhood girlfriend. In return, Moran took the collar (usurping the lead Murder detective) and received a recommendation for promotion by Mackey. The case required Moran to prep Holly as a witness for trial.
Holly now brings Moran fresh evidence in the murder of sixteen year old Chris Harper, student at a boys' boarding school adjacent to St. Kilda's, the girls' school where Holly attends classes and boards during the school term. One year ago, Harper was found by nuns on the grounds of St. Kilda's with his skull bashed in. One of the detectives on the case, Antoinette Conway, questioned Holly and the rest of the students at St. Kilda's; no one saw anything, no one heard anything and no explanation for Chris Harper being on the girls' campus was ever determined.
Inside a clear plastic envelope is a plain white card and a thumbtack that Holly removed from a noticeboard outside the art room. Known as the Secret Place, the board allows the students of St. Kilda's to post anonymous notes as long as names are kept off. The card is a photo of Chris Harper with words cut out of a book. The note reads I know who killed him. A cop's kid to the bone, Holly tells Moran that she discovered the card this morning, cut it off the board with a balsa knife and was careful not to leave her prints on it. Holly has told no one. Holly wishes to keep it that way. Seeing his big ticket to Murder, Moran goes for a talk with Detective Conway.
Rough, my mam would have called Conway. That Antoinette one, and a sideways look with her chin tucked down: a bit rough. Not meaning her personality, or not just; meaning where she came from, and what. The accent told you, and the stare. Dublin, inner city; just a quick walk from where I grew up, maybe, but miles away all the same. Tower blocks. IRA-wannabe graffiti and puddles of piss. Junkies. People who've never passed an exam in their lives, but had every twist and turn of dole maths down pat. People who wouldn't have approved of Conway's career choice.
Quick-tempered when it comes to the boys club and their banter, Conway has been ostracized by the men of the Murder Squad. She has no steady partner and no intention of taking on Moran as one. He's insistent. "You said yourself you got nowhere with Holly Mackey and her mates. But she likes me enough, or trusts me enough, that she brought me this. And if she'll talk to me, she'll get her mates talking to me." Hearing something in his accent or maybe what he has to say, Conway agrees to let Moran tag along as she returns to St. Kilda's to ask some questions.
The novel forks away from Moran & Conway to move back in time to the months and weeks leading up to Chris Harper's murder. Holly Mackey is thick as thieves with her three best friends and roommates, the odd crowd. Julia Harte is the smart arse and boss of their outfit. Selena Wynne is the dreamer, an emo beauty. Rebecca O'Mara is headstrong with a strong case of arrested development. Led into battle by Julia, the girls have made enemies of St. Kilda's queen bees, the cool crowd, a group of robots they refer to as the Daleks: Joanne Hefferman, Gemma Harding, Orla Burgess and Alison Muldoon.
On the drive to St. Kilda's, Conway brings Moran up to speed on her interviews. Joanne snitched that prior to his murder, Chris had been going out with Selena. He was found with a condom in his pocket and the likely theory is that he sneaked onto the girls' campus to score with someone. His head was split nearly in two by someone using a long handled instrument with a sharp blade. Selena and her mates denied she was with Chris and Joanne offered no evidence. No calls or texts were recovered linking Chris to a girlfriend. His mates, if they knew anything, weren't helpful. "Sixteen year old boys," Conway remarks, "you'd get more sense going down to the zoo and interviewing the chimp cage."
The detectives receive token assistance from the school's headmistress, Miss Eileen McKenna, whose priority is to protect the reputation St. Kilda's and keep parents from spending tuition money at another school. Conway & Moran determine that eight students had access to the art room and could've placed the note on the Secret Place: Julia, Selena, Holly & Becca or Joanne, Gemma, Orla & Alison. Having botched the initial interviews when her then partner insisted they be held in McKenna's office, Conway picks the art room and agrees to let Moran do the talking, casting him as Good Cop, with Conway's Bad Cop poised to take over if she thinks he's making a bollix of her case.
In the wake of Chris' murder, Holly warns her mates what to expect under questioning. "This isn't going to be like Houlihan going, 'Ooh dear, I smell tobacco, have you girls been smoking cigarettes?' and if you look innocent enough she believes you. These are detectives. If they get one clue that you know anything about anything, they're like pit bulls. Like, eight hours in an interview room with them interrogating you and your parents going apeshit, does that sound like fun? That's what'll happen if you even pause before you answer a question."
One of the reasons to keep returning to Tana French are her interrogation scenes, which are in a league of their own. I hope I'm never interrogated or have to interrogate anyone, but am fascinated by the similarities between a gifted interrogator and a performing artist; they both dress a set, put on a costume and play a character, varied from play to play, with the artistic license to say anything if it might compel someone to offer up information. French knows that. Her dialogue is razor sharp and she has the confidence to let these scenes play out without rushing forward from one plot point to the next.
The Secret Place crosses the Murder Squad up with their fiercest adversaries yet: eight teenage girls. "Maybe she didn't lie to me," Conway tells Moran, "But girls that age, they're liars. All of them." In many ways, this novel is one intense interrogation, staged on the campus of St. Kilda's over a twelve hour period as the truth of the girls' relationships with each other and with Chris Harper is revealed. Another thing French does artfully well in this novel is explore the nature of a developing partnership, as two detectives, a woman and a man, are pitched together and over the course of the day, learn each others games and determine whether or not they can trust each other.
Still giving orders, but her tone had changed. I'd passed the test, or we had: the click was there. Your dream partner grows in the back of your mind, secret, like your dream girl. Mine grew up with violin lessons, floor-to-high-ceiling books, red setters, a confidence he took for granted and a dry sense of humor no one but me would get. Mine was everything that wasn't Conway, and I would've bet hers was everything that wasn't me. But the click was there. Maybe, just for a few days, we could be good enough for each other.
What stops this novel from total satisfaction is French's decision to use Moran as a first person narrator of the even numbered chapters and to switch to a third person narrator for odd numbered chapters, which foreshadow the murder. This is something new for French and not only is it a major departure, it's blue balls. Chapter after chapter conclude in anti-climax, with French pulling the reader away from the investigation to hang out with her suspects, like mixing Law & Order: Special Victims Unit with Law & Order: Criminal Intent. French is a skilled enough to gradually invest me in her suspects (even with"OhmyGod" or "Whatever" being fired like tennis balls), but at the moment of climax, she returns to the cops.
What French does excel at once more is crafting an intoxicating murder mystery that's more than the sum of weapons or suspects or motives; the story resonated with me emotionally. French returns to a theme she first explored with In the Woods: the elusive nature of friendships. She remembers teenagers and she knows adults. And she's aware not to fix what ain't broke, bringing back the character of to threaten the detectives; the move is similar to introducing a tiger into a gladiatorial pit fight and poses a physical threat to Conway & Moran that teenage girls don't quite muster. Like much of French's work, it's a thrill, but one that doesn't wear off after the murderer is revealed and the plot is over.
In this follow-up to In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place and Broken Harbor, French continues a beguiling pattern of retrieving a supporting character from previous novels and casting them as the narrator of the sequel. Published in 2014, The Secret Place focuses on Detective Stephen Moran, "first in my family to go for a Learning Cert instead of an apprenticeship." Moran has been promoted with rapid succession and at the age of thirty-two, is working on the Cold Cases squad in Dublin. Ambition is one of Moran's strengths, as well as his greatest potential weakness, and the lad has his laser sights set on Murder.
Opportunity knocks when Holly Mackey, the sixteen-year-old daughter of undercover detective Frank Mackey, pays Moran a visit. Six years ago, with events depicted in Faithful Place (my favorite French novel so far, by a nose), Moran was plucked out of the floater pool by the devious Mackey to update him on Murder's investigation into the death of Mackey's childhood girlfriend. In return, Moran took the collar (usurping the lead Murder detective) and received a recommendation for promotion by Mackey. The case required Moran to prep Holly as a witness for trial.
Holly now brings Moran fresh evidence in the murder of sixteen year old Chris Harper, student at a boys' boarding school adjacent to St. Kilda's, the girls' school where Holly attends classes and boards during the school term. One year ago, Harper was found by nuns on the grounds of St. Kilda's with his skull bashed in. One of the detectives on the case, Antoinette Conway, questioned Holly and the rest of the students at St. Kilda's; no one saw anything, no one heard anything and no explanation for Chris Harper being on the girls' campus was ever determined.
Inside a clear plastic envelope is a plain white card and a thumbtack that Holly removed from a noticeboard outside the art room. Known as the Secret Place, the board allows the students of St. Kilda's to post anonymous notes as long as names are kept off. The card is a photo of Chris Harper with words cut out of a book. The note reads I know who killed him. A cop's kid to the bone, Holly tells Moran that she discovered the card this morning, cut it off the board with a balsa knife and was careful not to leave her prints on it. Holly has told no one. Holly wishes to keep it that way. Seeing his big ticket to Murder, Moran goes for a talk with Detective Conway.
Rough, my mam would have called Conway. That Antoinette one, and a sideways look with her chin tucked down: a bit rough. Not meaning her personality, or not just; meaning where she came from, and what. The accent told you, and the stare. Dublin, inner city; just a quick walk from where I grew up, maybe, but miles away all the same. Tower blocks. IRA-wannabe graffiti and puddles of piss. Junkies. People who've never passed an exam in their lives, but had every twist and turn of dole maths down pat. People who wouldn't have approved of Conway's career choice.
Quick-tempered when it comes to the boys club and their banter, Conway has been ostracized by the men of the Murder Squad. She has no steady partner and no intention of taking on Moran as one. He's insistent. "You said yourself you got nowhere with Holly Mackey and her mates. But she likes me enough, or trusts me enough, that she brought me this. And if she'll talk to me, she'll get her mates talking to me." Hearing something in his accent or maybe what he has to say, Conway agrees to let Moran tag along as she returns to St. Kilda's to ask some questions.
The novel forks away from Moran & Conway to move back in time to the months and weeks leading up to Chris Harper's murder. Holly Mackey is thick as thieves with her three best friends and roommates, the odd crowd. Julia Harte is the smart arse and boss of their outfit. Selena Wynne is the dreamer, an emo beauty. Rebecca O'Mara is headstrong with a strong case of arrested development. Led into battle by Julia, the girls have made enemies of St. Kilda's queen bees, the cool crowd, a group of robots they refer to as the Daleks: Joanne Hefferman, Gemma Harding, Orla Burgess and Alison Muldoon.
On the drive to St. Kilda's, Conway brings Moran up to speed on her interviews. Joanne snitched that prior to his murder, Chris had been going out with Selena. He was found with a condom in his pocket and the likely theory is that he sneaked onto the girls' campus to score with someone. His head was split nearly in two by someone using a long handled instrument with a sharp blade. Selena and her mates denied she was with Chris and Joanne offered no evidence. No calls or texts were recovered linking Chris to a girlfriend. His mates, if they knew anything, weren't helpful. "Sixteen year old boys," Conway remarks, "you'd get more sense going down to the zoo and interviewing the chimp cage."
The detectives receive token assistance from the school's headmistress, Miss Eileen McKenna, whose priority is to protect the reputation St. Kilda's and keep parents from spending tuition money at another school. Conway & Moran determine that eight students had access to the art room and could've placed the note on the Secret Place: Julia, Selena, Holly & Becca or Joanne, Gemma, Orla & Alison. Having botched the initial interviews when her then partner insisted they be held in McKenna's office, Conway picks the art room and agrees to let Moran do the talking, casting him as Good Cop, with Conway's Bad Cop poised to take over if she thinks he's making a bollix of her case.
In the wake of Chris' murder, Holly warns her mates what to expect under questioning. "This isn't going to be like Houlihan going, 'Ooh dear, I smell tobacco, have you girls been smoking cigarettes?' and if you look innocent enough she believes you. These are detectives. If they get one clue that you know anything about anything, they're like pit bulls. Like, eight hours in an interview room with them interrogating you and your parents going apeshit, does that sound like fun? That's what'll happen if you even pause before you answer a question."
One of the reasons to keep returning to Tana French are her interrogation scenes, which are in a league of their own. I hope I'm never interrogated or have to interrogate anyone, but am fascinated by the similarities between a gifted interrogator and a performing artist; they both dress a set, put on a costume and play a character, varied from play to play, with the artistic license to say anything if it might compel someone to offer up information. French knows that. Her dialogue is razor sharp and she has the confidence to let these scenes play out without rushing forward from one plot point to the next.
The Secret Place crosses the Murder Squad up with their fiercest adversaries yet: eight teenage girls. "Maybe she didn't lie to me," Conway tells Moran, "But girls that age, they're liars. All of them." In many ways, this novel is one intense interrogation, staged on the campus of St. Kilda's over a twelve hour period as the truth of the girls' relationships with each other and with Chris Harper is revealed. Another thing French does artfully well in this novel is explore the nature of a developing partnership, as two detectives, a woman and a man, are pitched together and over the course of the day, learn each others games and determine whether or not they can trust each other.
Still giving orders, but her tone had changed. I'd passed the test, or we had: the click was there. Your dream partner grows in the back of your mind, secret, like your dream girl. Mine grew up with violin lessons, floor-to-high-ceiling books, red setters, a confidence he took for granted and a dry sense of humor no one but me would get. Mine was everything that wasn't Conway, and I would've bet hers was everything that wasn't me. But the click was there. Maybe, just for a few days, we could be good enough for each other.
What stops this novel from total satisfaction is French's decision to use Moran as a first person narrator of the even numbered chapters and to switch to a third person narrator for odd numbered chapters, which foreshadow the murder. This is something new for French and not only is it a major departure, it's blue balls. Chapter after chapter conclude in anti-climax, with French pulling the reader away from the investigation to hang out with her suspects, like mixing Law & Order: Special Victims Unit with Law & Order: Criminal Intent. French is a skilled enough to gradually invest me in her suspects (even with"OhmyGod" or "Whatever" being fired like tennis balls), but at the moment of climax, she returns to the cops.
What French does excel at once more is crafting an intoxicating murder mystery that's more than the sum of weapons or suspects or motives; the story resonated with me emotionally. French returns to a theme she first explored with In the Woods: the elusive nature of friendships. She remembers teenagers and she knows adults. And she's aware not to fix what ain't broke, bringing back the character of to threaten the detectives; the move is similar to introducing a tiger into a gladiatorial pit fight and poses a physical threat to Conway & Moran that teenage girls don't quite muster. Like much of French's work, it's a thrill, but one that doesn't wear off after the murderer is revealed and the plot is over.
March 16, 2016
[4.5 Stars]
November 24, 2022
A Tana French novel is always a wonderful mindfuck, and while I saw some mixed reviews about “The Secret Place”, I was curious to see if my winning streak with her work would continue – and it most certainly has. It also reminded me why I am grateful everyday that I no longer am a teenage girl. Because teenage girls are a fucking nightmare.
We met Stephen Moran in “Broken Harbour” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), where he helped/made a mess trying to help Mick Kennedy. When this story picks up, he has been working Cold Cases for a while, when Holly Mackey, the great Frank Mackey’s sixteen year-old daughter (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) shows up at his desk. The previous year, a boy who attended the boarding school next to Holly’s was killed, and his body found on her school’s ground, but the case remains unresolved. Holly, however, brings in what she thinks might be new evidence: a photo of the boy captioned “I know who killed him”, that someone pinned on a board in the school. Moran alerts detective Antoinette Conway, who worked the case the year before, and together they go see what new information they can unearth about who murdered Chris Harper. But Moran has no idea what teenage girls are really like, until he is stuck untangling the stories told by Holly and her group of close friends, and their rival clique, charmingly nicknamed the Daleks.
I loved how French structure this particular Dublin Murder Squad story: alternating chapters told by Moran over the course of a very long day, and third person omniscient narrator chapters about what was going on with Holly and her friends, and the ambiguous Chris Harper over the last few months of his life. I went to a co-ed public school, so those girls’ lives are very far from what I experienced, but I’ve heard enough stories to know French hits the nail on the head with her description of the dynamics and interactions that happen in that kind of environment. She also perfectly captures the utterly painful madness that goes on semi-permanently in teenagers’ brains: so many conflicting feelings and emotions pushing against each other in a hormone-riddled system… It’s exhausting to just read about and remember what that was like.
“You forget what it was like. You’d swear on your life you never will, but year by year it falls away. How your temperature ran off the mercury, your heart galloped flat-out and never needed to rest, everything was pitched on the edge of shattering glass. How wanting something was like dying of thirst. How your skin was too fine to keep any of the million things flooding by; every color boiled bright enough to scald you, any second of any day could send you soaring or rip you to bloody shreds.”
Moran is obviously lost in this place, but Conway knows enough to help him navigate the alien world of an all-girl boarding school and put him exactly at the right place to get the information they need to finally unravel the thread and find out why Chris was killed. Because let’s face it, in a Tana French book, the perpetrator always takes a backseat to their (usually deeply depressing) motive. These cases are never simple, always wrapped up in layers of difficult human emotions. Maybe you wouldn’t have done the deed, but you can’t say you don’t see why someone was pushed there once the core of the story is exposed in all it’s rawness.
French’s prose, her all-too-real characters and their complicated inner lives wrapped me up as they had for the first four books of this series, and I let myself sink in all the way. Her depiction of the egg-like fragility of female friendship, especially at that age, gave me goosebumps and made me want to hug my bestie. As usual, there’s just a hint of unexplained stuff, almost as if she was thumbing her nose at the reader, but in the context of teenage friendship, I thought it made perfect sense: when are more ready to believe in things that are rejected by the grown-ups than when we are fifteen?
A beautiful continuation of the series, I loved it!
We met Stephen Moran in “Broken Harbour” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), where he helped/made a mess trying to help Mick Kennedy. When this story picks up, he has been working Cold Cases for a while, when Holly Mackey, the great Frank Mackey’s sixteen year-old daughter (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) shows up at his desk. The previous year, a boy who attended the boarding school next to Holly’s was killed, and his body found on her school’s ground, but the case remains unresolved. Holly, however, brings in what she thinks might be new evidence: a photo of the boy captioned “I know who killed him”, that someone pinned on a board in the school. Moran alerts detective Antoinette Conway, who worked the case the year before, and together they go see what new information they can unearth about who murdered Chris Harper. But Moran has no idea what teenage girls are really like, until he is stuck untangling the stories told by Holly and her group of close friends, and their rival clique, charmingly nicknamed the Daleks.
I loved how French structure this particular Dublin Murder Squad story: alternating chapters told by Moran over the course of a very long day, and third person omniscient narrator chapters about what was going on with Holly and her friends, and the ambiguous Chris Harper over the last few months of his life. I went to a co-ed public school, so those girls’ lives are very far from what I experienced, but I’ve heard enough stories to know French hits the nail on the head with her description of the dynamics and interactions that happen in that kind of environment. She also perfectly captures the utterly painful madness that goes on semi-permanently in teenagers’ brains: so many conflicting feelings and emotions pushing against each other in a hormone-riddled system… It’s exhausting to just read about and remember what that was like.
“You forget what it was like. You’d swear on your life you never will, but year by year it falls away. How your temperature ran off the mercury, your heart galloped flat-out and never needed to rest, everything was pitched on the edge of shattering glass. How wanting something was like dying of thirst. How your skin was too fine to keep any of the million things flooding by; every color boiled bright enough to scald you, any second of any day could send you soaring or rip you to bloody shreds.”
Moran is obviously lost in this place, but Conway knows enough to help him navigate the alien world of an all-girl boarding school and put him exactly at the right place to get the information they need to finally unravel the thread and find out why Chris was killed. Because let’s face it, in a Tana French book, the perpetrator always takes a backseat to their (usually deeply depressing) motive. These cases are never simple, always wrapped up in layers of difficult human emotions. Maybe you wouldn’t have done the deed, but you can’t say you don’t see why someone was pushed there once the core of the story is exposed in all it’s rawness.
French’s prose, her all-too-real characters and their complicated inner lives wrapped me up as they had for the first four books of this series, and I let myself sink in all the way. Her depiction of the egg-like fragility of female friendship, especially at that age, gave me goosebumps and made me want to hug my bestie. As usual, there’s just a hint of unexplained stuff, almost as if she was thumbing her nose at the reader, but in the context of teenage friendship, I thought it made perfect sense: when are more ready to believe in things that are rejected by the grown-ups than when we are fifteen?
A beautiful continuation of the series, I loved it!
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