Detective Antoinette Conway and her Detective Stephen Moran haven’t been partners for long but they seem to fit together perfectly. In this police-procedural crime fiction, even as opposite personalities, they shine together as the newbie and bullied detectives, and their success is outstanding at the end.

In the prologue of the story the reader is introduced to the kind of a woman who is traumatized throughout her life by the disappearance of her father. This setup points both to the victim and Detective Conway. Yet the same incident has affected the two women differently.

Detective Conway is brash, volatile, tough, and seemingly independent. Her tough exterior is because she is the only woman detective who has been subjected to hazing by almost every other detective on the murder squad. She is alert to what happens around her and is affected and even swayed by those things even if she doesn’t show it outwardly. The present case is about charging one of her colleagues with murder, and in doing that, she may eventually mellow down a bit.

The victim Aislinn Murray is found dead in her home with a head wound. This has happened just when she was about to entertain her new boyfriend Rory Fallon, who is the obvious suspect. Rory is weak and scared and he keeps changing his story. His explanation of his timeline in the evening of the murder is not clear either. Still, from the way he talks, Conway and Moran suspect that Rory is innocent of the crime.

Aislinn’s death isn’t really murder but probably manslaughter as it was caused by her old boyfriend, a married detective, with whom she had started dating with the sole purpose of finding her long-lost father. When she met Rory, she really liked him and would probably shoo away the detective.

The solving of this crime takes many twists and turns, as so many people have so many motives, and at each step, the reader gets to know the people in the story better. Among those people is Breslin, the seasoned detective who is out to protect his partner from prosecution as he tries to take away the case or change the course of the investigation by pressuring Conway and Moran to charge Rory. Another one is Lucy, Aislinn’s best friend, whose testimony helps solve the crime.

The story is told from the first-person point of view by Conway, who is sometimes unreliable in her way of looking at things.

Tana French’s deep insight into her characters is amazing, and yet, she succeeds to crown this insight with her perfectly constructed plots. This may be why her books are a bit longer than most other crime fiction, but so much more worth the reading.

noticing the strengths of French as a good writer, especially her gifted prose, no matter what her genre.

the plot construction and twists, characterization, the different vocabularies and ways of speech of the characters.

Breslin's character as a person.

read other books by this author.

is Tana French, the author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, The Trespasser, and The Witch Elm. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction.

it is not only crime fiction but good fiction with literary merits.

Those who are used to cut-and-dry police-procedural stories and are interested only on the action and plot may find Tana French's murder stories a bit tedious and long, but I find them to be much more than murder stories, as this author makes me appreciate once again the art of all Irish poets and writers since Joyce.

In addition: I didn't know which of the Tana French Books came first, so I started to read them in any order, which isn't so bad because each book is a stand-alone, but today I found out their order of publication. This may also count because she uses the same characters but alters the importance of the roles they play in each story. So, here's what I found, should that be a choice for anyone.

Publication Order of Dublin Murder Squad Books

In the Woods (2007) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
The Likeness (2008) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
Faithful Place (2010) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
Broken Harbour (2011) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
The Secret Place (2014) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
The Trespasser (2016) Hardcover Paperback Kindle

Publication of Novels other than the Dublin Murder Squad

The Witch Elm (2018) Hardcover Paperback Kindle

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Created Jun 14, 2019 at 4:46pm • Submit your own review...