In the Woods
Dublin Murder Squad: 1
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3.9 • 176 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD 2008 FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
'You're twelve years old. It's the summer holiday. You're playing in the woods with your two best friends. Something happens. Something terrible. And the other two are never seen again.'
Twenty years on, Rob Ryan - the child who came back - is a detective in the Dublin police force. He's changed his name. No one knows about his past. Even he has no memory of what happened that day.
Then a little girl's body is found at the site of the old tragedy and Rob is drawn back into the mystery. For him and his DI partner, Cassie, every lead comes with its own sinister undercurrents. The victim's apparently normal family is hiding layers of secrets. Rob's own private enquiries are taking a toll on his mind. And every trail leads inexorably back . . . into the woods.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Irish author French expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller in her debut. When Katy Devlin, a 12-year-old girl from Knocknaree, a Dublin suburb, is found murdered at a local archeological dig, Det. Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, must probe deep into the victim's troubled family history. There are chilling similarities between the Devlin murder and the disappearance 20 years before of two children from the same neighborhood who were Ryan's best friends. Only Maddox knows Ryan was involved in the 1984 case. The plot climaxes with a taut interrogation by Maddox of a potential suspect, and the reader is floored by the eventual identity and motives of the killer. A distracting political subplot involves a pending motorway in Knocknaree, but Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, whose partnership and friendship elevate the narrative beyond a gory tale of murdered children and repressed childhood trauma.
Customer Reviews
It's the journey!
Loved this book - great descriptions, flawed characters, and beautiful writing. It's not a thrill a minute type of book, it slowly creeps up on you until you are so immersed that you can't let it go. Awesome.
Long winded and disappointing
I dragged myself through this book, hoping it would get better. I wanted there to be a twist at the end, there wasn't. The story fizzled out into a disappointing end. Sadly, there was very little excitement. When I thought it was finally becoming exciting, the plot fizzled into nothingness again. I won't bother with Tana French again.
In the woods
There were pages and pages of angst for the main character I started to skip over.
There is a second crime that goes no where, and looks like it was introduced to simply complicate things. It’s not solved.
The ending left me disappointed. Not going to bother with another.