I've just finished one of the best books I've read this year.
Irish author, Tana French's first novel, IN THE WOODS, is a
very effective amalgam of police procedural and noir. It
follows a pair of Dublin detective's, Rob Ryan and Cassie
Maddox, on the trail of a rape murderer. The victim is an
eleven-year-old girl whose body is dumped on an
archaeological dig being excavated quickly to make way for
highway construction.
French is a lyrical writer which makes her book a pleasure to
read even apart from its very eerie and disturbing story. At
first I couldn't help but compare Ryan & Maddox to SVU's
Benson & Stabler. But French's detectives are much more
emotional and complex than the Law & Order duo. Rob Ryan,
when he was thirteen, was the only survivor of what appears
to have been an abduction/murder of three children in the
same woods that are being excavated now.
When I first read the cover flap, I thought 'This is going to
be too coincidental to work,' but French pulls it off. Her
attention to tiny details makes the characters live in a way
that involves the reader. Their at times irrational behavior
makes them very true-to-life. And the resolution of the story
is right out of breaking news.
I can't think of a critical thing to say about this book.
I've already pre-ordered the sequel, THE LIKENESS, due out
next month on Amazon. French's style of storytelling is
somewhat like Ruth Rendell but her prose moves like music.
This woman is a major new voice in crime fiction.
Patrick King
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