I actually knew this detail ahead of time, so I actually wasn’t fazed by it-but I like to think that if I hadn’t known, I’m not the sort of reader who would be too bothered by something like that. Without getting into spoilers, there’s a certain detail about the ending, about the way this book resolves itself, that I know a lot of people find objectionable to the point of being a dealbreaker.

This is a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things but it did irritate me often enough to mention.Īnyway, I thought this book was fantastic, and while each book in this series can absolutely be read as a standalone, if you’re interested in getting into Tana French I do think this is a really good place to start. The other thing is that French has this one habit that bothers me, where her narrators often turn to the reader and say something along the lines of “I know what you’re thinking”/”I know you must be wondering”/”I know how this sounds,” etc, and I find that whatever they’re next about to say rarely lines up with what I am actually thinking, leaving me with the vague sensation that they’re talking to someone over my shoulder rather than me. I only had two complaints while I was reading this, the first of which actually resolved itself-for a while, I found the depiction of Rob and Cassie’s friendship a bit tiresome I felt like French would often go the extra mile to hammer the reader over the head with how special the bond between them was… but then by the end of the book I was stupidly invested in their relationship so I suppose Tana knew what she was doing there. Her mysteries are well-crafted and her books have that can’t-put-it-down factor, but the thing that really stands out about them is her brilliant character work and her deft hand at depicting the dark, fragile corners of human nature. It’s difficult to find thrillers that hit that sweet spot of propulsive/entertaining while actually displaying genuine literary skill, and I couldn’t be happier with how French manages to walk that fine line.

The thing I’ve heard praised about French the most often is her writing, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Twenty years later, Rob’s friends have never been found, and he’s working as a detective (a career choice that he insists is entirely unrelated), currently on a case involving a dead teenage girl who was found in the same Dublin suburb where Rob grew up.

Each book in this series follows a different detective on the (entirely fictional) Dublin Murder Squad, and the series begins with Rob Ryan, who has memory loss around a traumatic event from his childhood, where he went out with his two best friends in the woods, and was the only one to come home.

The likeness novel