In the Woods

As a child, Rob Ryan may have witnessed the murder of his friends. He returned home from the nearby woods, bloodied, remembering nothing. His friends never returned. Rob and his family soon moved away to escape the stain of the event, forever marked upon them via small town gossip. Now an adult, Rob still has no memory of what happened that day. He works as a police detective, and at the outset of this book, is assigned to investigate the murder of a child... one that may or may not be tied to the traumatic events of his childhood.

His detective partner and close companion Cassie is his only true confidant, and their relationship is one of the most interesting and involving parts of this book. Her character deserves more, and gets more, in French's next book The Likeness: A Novel.

I could not put the book down! This made for a lack of sleep, but an excellent reading experience. Seldom do I react out loud while reading a book -- but I did with this one. ("Oh god no!" ...followed by an embarrassed look around to see if anyone heard me). Yes, this book made me into the literary equivalent of that annoying guy who yells at the screen in the movie theater.

If you read other reviews, you will see people complaining that the book was a big letdown because it promised resolutions that it did not deliver. This is technically true, but I don't want to get too far into that because I consider it a spoiler. Let's just say that I was entirely satisfied at the end of the book, and then a day later, I shook my head, realizing that I didn't ever find out the things I expected to find out at the outset. French changes things up on us as we read along. And that was OK with me.

Take a chance on this one. And don't be embarrassed if you shout at the book once or twice. It's OK. I understand.

I couldn't decide whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars but went with the higher rating due to the overall reading experience. In general, it was well-written, pulled you into the pages, nicely plotted, good characters, etc., etc.

Unfortunately I thought the ending was just a cheat (WARNING - minor spoilers ahead) in a couple of ways. First of all, the primary mystery is never resolved, for seemingly no reason. Sure, there are books like "The Little Friend" where the whole point is to explore the impact of crimes that are never solved. This book read like a classic 'whodunit', though, so to realize on the last page that all the threads tied to the original mystery were just dropped, unresolved - big let down. I almost wonder if it will be solved in in a future book, since Cassie already appears in Tana French's next novel.

Second, the book seemed determined to end on the most sour note possible for all involved, even having the characters behave in seemingly bizarre ways to achieve this. The most deplorable character in the book ends up with one of the happiest endings. The main character is supposedly completely and totally duped by a criminal despite the fact that she (the criminal) acts like a nut job for the bulk of the book. He also decides, after years of friendship, to cut all ties with and completely mistrust his best friend in the universe because of a drunken hookup. Ok, maybe if your main character is 14, but outside of that this sudden turn made no sense, even given his emotional issues.

So again, I felt 90% of this book was great, and the ending was passable enough, but not nearly on par with the rest of the book. I'd still recommend it, with a slight caution.

Three children go into the woods near Dublin. Only one lives -- with no memory of what happened. 20 years later, that survivor is a detective on the murder squad. What happens when a crime occurs near the original disappearances? How is it solved, and how does he and his partner deal with it?

This is an excellent mystery. But what makes this novel so outstanding is the detailed and insightful character development. This book is beautifully written and crafted to perfection. If I have a single quibble, it is that there is a profound sadness throughout the book. But that is part of the story. I won't give any spoilers, but recommend it 100%.

I was immediately drawn into this book and Ms. French's writing style. Half-way through it began to drag somewhat and I found myself a little distracted by all the digression and verbiage but I suspected that Ms. French was doing something marvelous with the plot and with her main character so I stuck it out as she accelerated toward resolving the mysteries. Finally, around 4:30 in the morning, with a disgusted sigh, I flung the unsatisfying paperback across the room. I deprived myself of sleep for that??? UGH! What a disappointing ending to a work that started off brillantly. First and last book I'll pick up by Tana French.

I gave up after about a hundred pages. The plot developed nicely enough; my problem was with the narrative voice. What was supposed to be a straight male homicide detective came across as a college girl with a lesbian crush on Cassie. Reading about how he "loved" to watch Cassie do this and "loved" to watch her do that got tiresome. Rob was a woman writer's fantasy of a certain kind of desexed male friend. That kind of thing has its place, but not as a first person narrative of a mystery.