Friday Fiction: Tana French

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With her latest Dublin-based psychological mystery/suspense novel (Faithful Place) just released, Irish author Tana French has once again divided the opinions of readers and critics alike. To some, the Edgar Award-winning novelist's flair for "psychological insight, beautiful writing and wry humor" makes her deserving of every award she's ever won. To others, her penchant for open-ended non-resolution of plot strands makes her completely infuriating (and makes them throw her books across the room!)
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French holds dual citizenship in the United States and Italy. She grew up in Ireland, Italy, the United States, and Malawi and has lived in Dublin since 1990. Trained as a professional actor at Trinity College, she works in theater, film, and voice-over and is a member of Purple Heart Theatre Company. Both her debut novel, In the Woods, and follow-up, The Likeness, have been bestsellers in hardcover and paperback. Winner of the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, she lives in Dublin with her husband and daughter.

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In the Woods - In her debut novel, Irish author French expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller. When Katy Devlin, a 12-year-old girl from Knocknaree, a Dublin suburb, is found murdered at a local archeological dig, Det. Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers and must probe deep into the victim's troubled family history. There are chilling similarities between the Devlin murder and the disappearance 20 years before of two children from the same neighborhood who were Ryan's best friends (and with whom, in fact, Ryan had been playing when they disappeared...)
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Only Maddox knows Ryan was involved in the 1984 case and, although somewhat concerned about his close ties to the first murders, she unhesitatingly believes in his ability to work the Devlin murder. For his part, Ryan -- although scarred and traumatized by his childhood experience -- employs all his skills in the search for the killer in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends.
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The plot climaxes with a taut interrogation by Maddox of a potential suspect, and the reader is floored by the eventual identity and motives of the killer. Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, and In the Woods is a superior novel about cops, murder, memory, relationships, and modern Ireland.

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The Likeness - French’s debut novel, In the Woods (2007), introduced Dublin Murder Squad detective Cassie Maddox and earned unanimous critical praise. Cassie is back, and French has written another winner. The body of a young woman is found in the ruins of an old stone cottage in a dying village outside of Dublin, and the dead woman and Cassie are virtual twins. Lacking suspects or leads, the victim is reported by the police to be injured but alive, leaving Cassie to try solving the case by stepping into the dead woman’s life as a Trinity College graduate student and the housemate of four other students.
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All four of them, apparently with the cooperation of Lexie, have chosen to live in some realm outside the modern world and to make Whitethorn House a monument to their eccentricities. But what really held them together? What went on within their snobbishly tight little clique? Nothing in her real life has prepared her for the quaint, anachronistic and sinister daydream into which she has stumbled...

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Faithful Place - French's emotionally searing third novel of the Dublin murder squad (after 2009's The Likeness) shows the Irish author getting better with each book. In 1985, 19-yearold Frank Mackey and his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, made secret plans to elope to England and start a new life together far away from their families, particularly the hard-drinking Mackeys. But when Rosie doesn't meet Frank the night they're meant to leave and he finds a note, Frank assumes she's left him behind.

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For 22 years, Frank, who becomes an undercover cop, stays away from Faithful Place, his childhood Dublin neighborhood. When his younger sister, Jackie, calls to tell him that someone found Rosie's suitcase hidden in an abandoned house, Frank reluctantly returns. Now everything he thought he knew is turned upside down: did Rosie really leave that night, or did someone stop her before she could? French, who briefly introduced Mackey in The Likeness, is adept at seamlessly blending suspenseful whodunit elements with Frank's familial demons.