Lyn's Reviews > In the Woods

Very, very good.

Tana French’s 2007 introduction to her Dublin Murder Squad series eschews “normal” detective prose for a more literary and artistic approach. Hers is not the terse and journalistic objectivism of hard-boiled literature, nor the overly technical and post-modernistic dialect of more recent crime writing. French’s language is rich and erudite, blending the best of many genre’s into a style that is fresh, unique and intoxicating.

Told from a first person perspective of Dublin homicide detective Rob Ryan, French has crafted a multi-layered psychological thriller that is more than simply an investigation into the murder of a 12-year-old girl living in the rural, suburban estate of Knocknaree. Ryan, something of an unrealistic narrator, has deeply buried and scarring issues of his own as he was the lone survivor of an unsolved disappearance involving himself as a young boy and two of his childhood friends in Knocknaree in the mid-eighties. The facts of this cold case are intertwined and lurk tauntingly at the edges of the present inquiry.

French also mixes in several sub-plots into her narrative that combine to produce an atmosphere of tension and heightening disquietude, plunging resolutely towards the end. The culmination of the many loose ends is tied together in French’s talented and sophisticated work. It is this group dynamic, the interactions between Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox and the other members of the squad, as well as the collection of witnesses, that elevates this to a more mature and satisfying novel.

The little girl is found on an archeological site, being quickly mined and researched because of an interstate going in, and this sub-plot allows French to explore Irish culture, both present and ancient. Irish history and pre-history, the archeological dig and multiple Celtic references all combine to evoke a sense of paranormal enigma to this already highly entertaining story.

A great book, I’ll return to visit Ms. French’s writing again.