French, Tana. In the Woods. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2007. Print.
Reviewed by J. d'Artagnan Love
429 pages.
Told from detective Rob Ryan's point of view, In the Woods follows two homicide cases. The first case is that of young Katy Devlin and the second case is one in which Ryan was actually a victim--the case of two missing children in Knocknaree, Ireland back in 1984. With Devlin's murder also taking place in the same Knocknaree woods as the the 1984 cold case, Ryan is thrown back into a past that he can't clearly remember because he suffers from acute retrograde amnesia.
I am usually pretty good about predicting the ending of mysteries and thrillers. While reading In the Woods, I made predictions on page 60, page 160, and page 246. All of my predictions were wrong. I'm not trying to sound arrogant here, but I am almost always right about the outcome of a mystery. This mostly because I've read so many mysteries that I can easily deduce patterns in mystery novels that indicate who dunnit. That Tana French was able to stump me speaks to the genius of her writing.
In the Woods is a mystery but Tana French's prose is so masterful that it reads more like a piece of literary fiction. I would compare her to Gillian Flynn in the way she explores morality and big life questions, though they have quite different writing voices.
SPOILER ALERT. One thing was not very clearly wrapped up, but there is also a good chance that I just missed it in my first read of the novel: on page 298, Ryan notes that he had lost touch with reality to a degree that he wasn't sure if the following events were real or part of a dream. This isn't mentioned again as the book comes to a conclusion, so readers have to assume the events were real but I can't help but question it. I wonder if this is something that French will refer back to in later books as this was the first book in a series of the Dublin Murder Squad mysteries. END SPOILER.
Without giving away any further spoilers, this book left some cases unsolved. It really created this raw, unhealed feeling of festering longing and grief that I imagine is only a small slice of what families who have actually experienced this kind of crime must feel.
Tana French is truly talented and I'm excited to continue reading this series.
Would I read it again?
Yes. This is a book I'd like to read again and slowly so I can really absorb some of the ideas and character portraits.
Recommend for
I think readers who like Gillian Flynn would also appreciate Tana French despite there being differences in tone and style.
Not Recommend for
Readers who are triggered by violence and graphic descriptions.
Word Bank (new-to-me vocabulary)
- bolshie (p. 11)
- apoplectic (p. 274)
- banjaxed (p. 248)
- bedsit (p. 12)
- bowsie (p. 110)
- Brylcreemed (p. 386)
- crenellations (p. 251)
- crosshatching (p. 3)
- curlews (p. 156)
- eejit (p. 128)
- gurriers (p. 217)
- kibbutzniks (p.35)
- inchoate (p. 178)
- jettons (p. 35)
- langered (p. 250)
- mattock (p. 39)
- mica (p. 23)
- midges (p. 21)
- Portacabins (p. 21)
- redolent (p. 285)
- restive (p. 248)
- satsuma (p. 105)
- slagged (p. 185)
- soupcons (p. 10)
- spate (p. 246)
- stoat (p. 187)
- tensile (p. 18)
- unprepossessing (p. 106)
- vestal (p. 81)
- votary (p. 82)
3 stars out of 5
Tana French's website: http://tanafrench.com/
Tana French on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/138825.Tana_French
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