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A gifted voice in psychological suspense, Tana French delivers a mesmerizing debut thriller. After a 12-year-old Irish lad and his two pals fail to return from a day in the woods, searchers find only the terrified sixth grader—with blood-filled shoes and no memory of what happened. Now 32, the tragedy's sole survivor Rob Ryan is a detective on Dublin's Murder Squad. A current investigation takes Rob to the exact site of his childhood trauma. With the present case chillingly similar to his show more 20-year-old nightmare, Rob hopes to unlock the shrouded secrets of his past.. show less
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BookshelfMonstrosity Missing persons cases drive these lyrical, richly detailed novels that blend Mystery and Psychological Fiction to explore family secrets, childhood friendships, and the loss of innocence. First-person narration heightens suspense by calling into question the reliability of memory.
Nickelini Murder mysteries set in forests of Ireland, although otherwise not very similar.
BookshelfMonstrosity These psychological suspense novels feature characters who, as young children, witness horrible crimes and must now revisit their painful pasts to discover the truth. The stories are fast paced, chilling, and atmospheric.
Ling.Lass Unreliable narrators, psychopaths, unsympathetic characters who miss their chance at redemption
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Member Reviews
I have had [In the Woods] on my TBR shelves for a while now and expect I’ll be adding French’s other two novels shortly. Simply put, I loved this book. I loved the fine character development, the sharp dialogue, and the sweet, dark sadness at its heart.
Beautifully written, [In the Woods] is less a police procedural than an exploration of memory and experience as it explores two separate but tenuously connected mysteries: the present day murder of a little girl and the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of two children. The two missing children happen to have been the best friends of the lead detective on the murder case and his inability to remember what happened a long ago summer day still haunts him. French’s evocation of show more childhood summers – that intense feeling of freedom and wonder where the world seems to be all yours – is excellent. Equally good is her depiction of the friendship and camaraderie between the narrator – the lead detective – and his partner. The toll the case takes on each of them and on their relationship is heartbreaking but rings truer than not.
The solution of the mystery of the murdered girl is not all that surprising, but nor was it the heart of the book so it didn’t really bother me. French uses that story to tell a deeper one and one well worth reading. show less
Beautifully written, [In the Woods] is less a police procedural than an exploration of memory and experience as it explores two separate but tenuously connected mysteries: the present day murder of a little girl and the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of two children. The two missing children happen to have been the best friends of the lead detective on the murder case and his inability to remember what happened a long ago summer day still haunts him. French’s evocation of show more childhood summers – that intense feeling of freedom and wonder where the world seems to be all yours – is excellent. Equally good is her depiction of the friendship and camaraderie between the narrator – the lead detective – and his partner. The toll the case takes on each of them and on their relationship is heartbreaking but rings truer than not.
The solution of the mystery of the murdered girl is not all that surprising, but nor was it the heart of the book so it didn’t really bother me. French uses that story to tell a deeper one and one well worth reading. show less
This novel was a complete drag and incredibly long-winded. The narrator, Detective Rob Ryan, is a narcissistic putz with an aversion to commitment and long-standing emotional deficits he attributes to a childhood trauma. His main redeeming quality is his friendship with his partner, Detective Cassie Maddox, whom he manages to alienate entirely on account of his aforementioned issues before the completion of the novel. While the story is driven by the investigation of young Katy Devlin's disturbing murder, much of In The Woods is Ryan's inability to cope with the possible connection between this crime and the unsolved disappearance and suspected murder of his childhood friends which occurred over 20 years prior in the same wooded area. A show more crime of which he was the sole witness but has no recollection of.
Psychopaths and dark secrets abound as Ryan gradually descends into his own personal hell and we're forced to slog through his self-destruction as he ruins his career and only functional relationship. French's writing style and a desire for closure kept me persisting until the end, but with a handful of stunning, psychologically complex scenes interspersed with long sections of utter misery and one of the most dismal endings I've ever encountered, In The Woods ultimately felt like some sort of punishment. show less
Psychopaths and dark secrets abound as Ryan gradually descends into his own personal hell and we're forced to slog through his self-destruction as he ruins his career and only functional relationship. French's writing style and a desire for closure kept me persisting until the end, but with a handful of stunning, psychologically complex scenes interspersed with long sections of utter misery and one of the most dismal endings I've ever encountered, In The Woods ultimately felt like some sort of punishment. show less
I've been terribly sick and had to show up at work anyway, so at home I've been doing nothing but curling up into the fetal position and reading entire books. Just recently it came into my mind that I desperately wanted to read a crime novel, which is presumably the illness talking because that's not my usual cozy read.
Anyway, Tana French was on my to-read list, and indeed In the Woods was the right crime novel for me. Apparently "psychological thriller" means "crime novel for people who like literary fiction"? Sometimes I don't really understand genre categories.
In the Woods was gorgeously written, the story of a Irish detective who was caught up in the disappearance of two friends at age twelve and is now investigating a crime in the show more same village. Ryan is a frustrating character, foolhardy and a bit clueless, but I enjoyed spending time in his head. Ryan doesn't remember the crime that claimed his friends, and his alienation from his past and the workings of his own psyche is mirrored by images of archaeological ruins and dark, devouring fairy tale woods. His friendship with his warm but reserved partner Cassie is a compelling portrait of a flawed but vital relationship.
The police procedural was pretty fun too and the mystery was satisfyingly dark. I'm certainly not well-equipped to judge books in this genre, but I liked this one and will be seeking out more by French. show less
Anyway, Tana French was on my to-read list, and indeed In the Woods was the right crime novel for me. Apparently "psychological thriller" means "crime novel for people who like literary fiction"? Sometimes I don't really understand genre categories.
In the Woods was gorgeously written, the story of a Irish detective who was caught up in the disappearance of two friends at age twelve and is now investigating a crime in the show more same village. Ryan is a frustrating character, foolhardy and a bit clueless, but I enjoyed spending time in his head. Ryan doesn't remember the crime that claimed his friends, and his alienation from his past and the workings of his own psyche is mirrored by images of archaeological ruins and dark, devouring fairy tale woods. His friendship with his warm but reserved partner Cassie is a compelling portrait of a flawed but vital relationship.
The police procedural was pretty fun too and the mystery was satisfyingly dark. I'm certainly not well-equipped to judge books in this genre, but I liked this one and will be seeking out more by French. show less
In a creepy mystery debut tinged with the supernatural, Tana French introduces us to members of the Dublin Murder Squad, who are confronted early in the novel with a gristly crime. A young girl is found murdered on an archaeological dig site in Knocknaree, neatly arranged on an old sacrifice altar. The story is narrated by Rob Ryan, one of the main detectives on the case, who also has a secret connection to the mystery that he is keeping from the others. When he was a young boy, Ryan and his two best friends ran off to play in the woods surrounding his house, the same woods that years later becomes a dig site where the body of a murdered girl is found. Adam Ryan went into the forest with his friends, and the three of them disappeared. show more After a search party had hunted for hours for the missing kids, Ryan was finally found, his shoes filled with blood and long tears in the back of his shirt. His best friends, Jamie and Peter, were never found.
In the aftermath of the horrific experience, Adam and his family moved to a different house in a different city, and he went to a new school. When he grew up, Adam started going by his middle name of Rob, and he decided to become a detective. Not to solve the crime of his childhood, at least not consciously; he had relegated that whole time in Knocknaree to the recesses of his mind, trying to bury memories of Jamie, Peter, and the woods. And he had a helpful head start on erasing his past. When the searchers found Adam in the woods, he had no memory of anything that occurred after they had gone into the woods that day. His mind was wiped clean. No, he doesn't become a detective to unearth his past, but because he thought the Murder squad was the elite of the police force, and he wanted to be one of them. At least, so he tells us. The story is narrated by Rob Ryan in the first person, and he admits at the beginning that he is unreliable. As he describes it, detectives are relentless in the pursuit of truth, and they will engage in every kind of deception to find it.
Rob and his partner, Cassie, are assigned the case because his superiors are unaware of Rob's dark connections to Knocknaree. The only one who knows about his traumatic childhood is Cassie, and after Rob entreats her to keep it quiet, she agrees. Rob and Cassie are very close, their partnership the most solid one in the squad. Using the fine skills they have honed over the years, and the advantage of their perfectly synced relationship, they start to unearth the secrets surrounding the murder of twelve-year-old Katy Devlin, and Rob tries to peel back the dark cover hiding his own mystery, wondering if the two cases are somehow connected.
As the investigation progresses, obstacles become more pronounced. Rob and Cassie run into one dead end after another, and every lead they have fizzles into nothing. Even after they have Sam join their team to pursue the political angle, it seems like the case is heading to haunting unsolved status. Furthermore, it is becoming apparent that Katy's death has nothing to do with the older mystery of Jamie and Peter's disappearance. When the big break finally does come, it is attached to too high a price, and leaves no one satisfied.
This mystery is a truly chilling and suspenseful story. It starts darkly, with specks of sunlight filtering through, and only gets more midnight as you read. Rob's history is sad and disturbing. All of this dark progression makes for a compelling read that is hard to put down. I personally loved the way the author wove in clues in conversations and haunting memories that suggest his friends' disappearances has a supernatural explanation. Many reviewers were disappointed in the fact that the old mystery had no official resolution. By the conclusion of the novel, I felt that the author had left plenty of clues to implicate a beyond-human cause for his missing friends, and I was happy to leave it there, because a situation like that would not be solved by a human police force, and because it left the whole backstory much eerier and more disturbing. To me, accepting that he and his friends had an encounter with the unexplainable is what links the two halves of the story together, and makes many events that occur in present time much more comprehensible. Also, the suggested interlacing of the old mystery with the new puts a lot narrative pressure on Rob Ryan, and changes his character in fascinating and sometimes horrible ways. For the first two-thirds of the book I was quite sympathetic to him, rooting for him to solve his childhood mystery and figure out his relationships. Then, in the last third of the novel, he truly takes a turn in character that almost completely alienated me, and pushed me to focus my compassion solely on Cassie. By the end, when the understanding of his jerkiness and remorse (finally!) set in, he redeems himself a little. I did feel bad for Rob at the end, and the novel concludes on a bittersweet note, with some answers and some questions, the main plot points tied up but many uncomfortable loose ends dangling. I like it this way. It's a powerful story, and novels like that don't wrap everything up into a tidy box. The story and characters evolve in ways that made sense with the developing plot, and we have enough information to understand the mystery, even if we don't like everything we learn. The characters, especially the central ones, are complex and compelling, and I would happily read more about them. This was a well-written and original mystery, which offers the suggestion of more fun reading from this author in the her next books. show less
In the aftermath of the horrific experience, Adam and his family moved to a different house in a different city, and he went to a new school. When he grew up, Adam started going by his middle name of Rob, and he decided to become a detective. Not to solve the crime of his childhood, at least not consciously; he had relegated that whole time in Knocknaree to the recesses of his mind, trying to bury memories of Jamie, Peter, and the woods. And he had a helpful head start on erasing his past. When the searchers found Adam in the woods, he had no memory of anything that occurred after they had gone into the woods that day. His mind was wiped clean. No, he doesn't become a detective to unearth his past, but because he thought the Murder squad was the elite of the police force, and he wanted to be one of them. At least, so he tells us. The story is narrated by Rob Ryan in the first person, and he admits at the beginning that he is unreliable. As he describes it, detectives are relentless in the pursuit of truth, and they will engage in every kind of deception to find it.
Rob and his partner, Cassie, are assigned the case because his superiors are unaware of Rob's dark connections to Knocknaree. The only one who knows about his traumatic childhood is Cassie, and after Rob entreats her to keep it quiet, she agrees. Rob and Cassie are very close, their partnership the most solid one in the squad. Using the fine skills they have honed over the years, and the advantage of their perfectly synced relationship, they start to unearth the secrets surrounding the murder of twelve-year-old Katy Devlin, and Rob tries to peel back the dark cover hiding his own mystery, wondering if the two cases are somehow connected.
As the investigation progresses, obstacles become more pronounced. Rob and Cassie run into one dead end after another, and every lead they have fizzles into nothing. Even after they have Sam join their team to pursue the political angle, it seems like the case is heading to haunting unsolved status. Furthermore, it is becoming apparent that Katy's death has nothing to do with the older mystery of Jamie and Peter's disappearance. When the big break finally does come, it is attached to too high a price, and leaves no one satisfied.
This mystery is a truly chilling and suspenseful story. It starts darkly, with specks of sunlight filtering through, and only gets more midnight as you read. Rob's history is sad and disturbing. All of this dark progression makes for a compelling read that is hard to put down. I personally loved the way the author wove in clues in conversations and haunting memories that suggest his friends' disappearances has a supernatural explanation. Many reviewers were disappointed in the fact that the old mystery had no official resolution. By the conclusion of the novel, I felt that the author had left plenty of clues to implicate a beyond-human cause for his missing friends, and I was happy to leave it there, because a situation like that would not be solved by a human police force, and because it left the whole backstory much eerier and more disturbing. To me, accepting that he and his friends had an encounter with the unexplainable is what links the two halves of the story together, and makes many events that occur in present time much more comprehensible. Also, the suggested interlacing of the old mystery with the new puts a lot narrative pressure on Rob Ryan, and changes his character in fascinating and sometimes horrible ways. For the first two-thirds of the book I was quite sympathetic to him, rooting for him to solve his childhood mystery and figure out his relationships. Then, in the last third of the novel, he truly takes a turn in character that almost completely alienated me, and pushed me to focus my compassion solely on Cassie. By the end, when the understanding of his jerkiness and remorse (finally!) set in, he redeems himself a little. I did feel bad for Rob at the end, and the novel concludes on a bittersweet note, with some answers and some questions, the main plot points tied up but many uncomfortable loose ends dangling. I like it this way. It's a powerful story, and novels like that don't wrap everything up into a tidy box. The story and characters evolve in ways that made sense with the developing plot, and we have enough information to understand the mystery, even if we don't like everything we learn. The characters, especially the central ones, are complex and compelling, and I would happily read more about them. This was a well-written and original mystery, which offers the suggestion of more fun reading from this author in the her next books. show less
3.75 stars. very well written first book. i like an awful lot of what she's done here. not everything certainly, but quite a lot, especially the quality and tenor of the writing.
i love that the two threads of the story, that we think will relate at some point and that they're working to find the link between, never actually do tie together. and that the thread in the past, then, remains unsolved and we don't really know what happened to ryan or the other kids that day in the woods. i know many readers would probably hate this, that she leaves it unknown and unsolved, but it feels so real to me that we don't always get answers, that we think there are connections when really there aren't, that we reach for continuity that isn't there. show more that we try to use the present to figure out our past. and it doesn't always work. and sometimes it even fucks up our present because we aren't looking where we should.
so i love that, and i also really loved how she portrayed friendship in this book. i loved the relationships between the trios, both in the past and present, that show true depth of friendship and connection.so i hated it when she made any of these relationships sexual; she lulled me into thinking it wouldn't because it took so long, and i was glad that it wasn't going to happen and was pissed off when it did. but at least it ruined their friendship.
i will absolutely read her again. show less
so i love that, and i also really loved how she portrayed friendship in this book. i loved the relationships between the trios, both in the past and present, that show true depth of friendship and connection.
i will absolutely read her again. show less
***SPOILERS HIDDEN***
In the Woods. The title alone suggests mystery, atmosphere, a touch of the sinister. The book delivers on all three counts and far more. In the Woods grapples with two mysteries: a current murder case and a kidnapping cold case intimately connected to one of the lead detectives working on the current case. These murder and kidnapping mysteries may or may not be related. Narrated in a conversational style by this lead detective, the story also is as much a traditional murder mystery as it is a psychological exploration.
The characterization is sharp. It isn’t so much the murder mysteries that drive the story as it is murder detectives Cassie Maddox and Rob Ryan. They’re an engaging pair with an intuitive show more understanding of one another, which they use to their advantage during joint interrogations. Rob is a character possibly suffering from survivor guilt. Only the woods know what happened to his two best friends one summer day in 1984 and why he was the only one who didn't go missing along with them. He broods often and admits to anxieties and personal failings while this past mystery haunts him to the point of misery. This isn't some hard-boiled, macho detective; French was careful to show that detectives are human too.
Cassie, as someone with boundless energy and spunk (but not without anxieties of her own), works well as Rob’s steadying force. Together they make for a playful dynamic duo working one of the murder squad’s most sensational, high-pressure cases. Much of the story is about these two co-workers and friends.
These are characters that seem real and are what will keep readers most invested in the story (which isn’t to say, however, that the multi-layered murder mystery can’t hold attention). It’s impossible not to like and root for them. Additionally, the book’s many humorous instances stem from a variety of colorful personalities. Rob’s housemate in particular stands out. The moments of levity are a welcome touch in an otherwise eerie, somber novel.
The pacing could have used a shot of pep at the start and a bit at the end, where it feels French started to "information dump" ever so slightly. The book shines the most by its halfway point. This is a dense story, with stories within stories within stories, highly unpredictable plot twists (which are probably what earn it comparisons to [b:Gone Girl|8442457|Gone Girl|Gillian Flynn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327676332l/8442457._SY75_.jpg|13306276]), and a sizable cast of distinctive characters. The spooky woods of the book’s title are always the backdrop, lending a strong sense of foreboding.
The Irish sensibility is remarkable, another aspect that helps along the characterization significantly; one can hear the Irish lilt in each of these character’s voices. They speak in certain “Irish-isms”; the sky often is gray or it’s raining; socializing involves smoking and too much drinking. There’s no mistaking this is taking place in Ireland.
In the Woods won a handful of awards in 2008, and it’s no wonder why. This is no dime-a-dozen, tritely written murder mystery. French wrote this in a literary style that at times borders on the poetic:without feeling the need to neatly tie it all up by the end , and isn’t that often just how it goes when it comes to many murder cases? It’s this kind of realism, along with so many other winning qualities, that elevates In the Woods to a higher tier. show less
In the Woods. The title alone suggests mystery, atmosphere, a touch of the sinister. The book delivers on all three counts and far more. In the Woods grapples with two mysteries: a current murder case and a kidnapping cold case intimately connected to one of the lead detectives working on the current case. These murder and kidnapping mysteries may or may not be related. Narrated in a conversational style by this lead detective, the story also is as much a traditional murder mystery as it is a psychological exploration.
The characterization is sharp. It isn’t so much the murder mysteries that drive the story as it is murder detectives Cassie Maddox and Rob Ryan. They’re an engaging pair with an intuitive show more understanding of one another, which they use to their advantage during joint interrogations. Rob is a character possibly suffering from survivor guilt. Only the woods know what happened to his two best friends one summer day in 1984 and why he was the only one who didn't go missing along with them. He broods often and admits to anxieties and personal failings while this past mystery haunts him to the point of misery. This isn't some hard-boiled, macho detective; French was careful to show that detectives are human too.
Cassie, as someone with boundless energy and spunk (but not without anxieties of her own), works well as Rob’s steadying force. Together they make for a playful dynamic duo working one of the murder squad’s most sensational, high-pressure cases. Much of the story is about these two co-workers and friends.
These are characters that seem real and are what will keep readers most invested in the story (which isn’t to say, however, that the multi-layered murder mystery can’t hold attention). It’s impossible not to like and root for them. Additionally, the book’s many humorous instances stem from a variety of colorful personalities. Rob’s housemate in particular stands out. The moments of levity are a welcome touch in an otherwise eerie, somber novel.
The pacing could have used a shot of pep at the start and a bit at the end, where it feels French started to "information dump" ever so slightly. The book shines the most by its halfway point. This is a dense story, with stories within stories within stories, highly unpredictable plot twists (which are probably what earn it comparisons to [b:Gone Girl|8442457|Gone Girl|Gillian Flynn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327676332l/8442457._SY75_.jpg|13306276]), and a sizable cast of distinctive characters. The spooky woods of the book’s title are always the backdrop, lending a strong sense of foreboding.
The Irish sensibility is remarkable, another aspect that helps along the characterization significantly; one can hear the Irish lilt in each of these character’s voices. They speak in certain “Irish-isms”; the sky often is gray or it’s raining; socializing involves smoking and too much drinking. There’s no mistaking this is taking place in Ireland.
In the Woods won a handful of awards in 2008, and it’s no wonder why. This is no dime-a-dozen, tritely written murder mystery. French wrote this in a literary style that at times borders on the poetic:
The wood had never been so lush or so feral. Leaves threw off dazzles of sunlight like sparklers and the colors were so bright you could live on them, the smell of fertile earth amplified to something heady as church wine. We shot through humming clouds of midges and leaped ditches and rotten logs, branches swirled around us like water, swallows trapezed across our path and in the trees alongside I swear three deer kept pace with us.This book presents disturbing and heartbreaking realities
There was a time when I believed I was the redeemed one, the boy borne safely home on the ebb of whatever freak tide carried Peter and Jamie away. Not any more. In ways too dark and crucial to be called metaphorical, I never left that wood.
My copy is so much better than yours, aHA!
When I was around seven or eight, my dad took me to school like any other morning. I remember it was raining -- those nasty sheets of water that make it difficult to see the palm right in front of your face -- and the local radio kept warning everyone to "be good" on the road. My sister and I were singing some random lyrics we heard off the TV in the back of the car, and my dad kept telling us to shut up because he couldn't concentrate. It wasn't until I grew show more up that I realised just how important it is to concentrate whilst driving.
Anyway, it usually took us about 20 minutes to get to school, but that morning half the roads were closed. A kid a few years older than me had been hit by a car, died on impact. They said he didn't suffer, that the driver had not seen him fly into the road, and the school was going to be shut for the day due to the weather.
To this day, I remember the news. I don't, however, remember the boy's name, or what he looked like or what year he was in.
A few years later, Madeleine McCann went missing in Portugal. This, I remember as if it were yesterday. It was all over the news, parents became a hundred times more protective. Police came to the schools and gave talks about safety in numbers, of never leaving a group of people and wandering off unsupervised and teachers lectured us about leaving school without confirmation of a buddy or parents picking up.
We didn't realise back then just how big the case would become. I remember talking to my friend and she said, "This whole thing has nothing to do with us, Maddie wasn't even in England at the time." But it was terrifying to know that a child could just vanish in the middle of the night, never to be found again.
You're probably wondering where I'm going with this, so I'll tell you. With the death of my school mate, the town had closure. We knew who did it, we knew it was an accident, and there was nothing we could do about it.
With the disappearance of Maddie, there was no closure, and with it came that sense of helplessness you just can't shake off. Like, you know you should be doing something to help, but what? What can you possibly do to help? Even now, she dominates the news -- random sightings, quick updates on the family, what Maddie would look like today and, lately, the family's book release and the ensuing Twitter abuse.
In the Woods shows exactly what lack of closure and/or involvement can do to a person. In the case of Maddie, there's still that desperate want to know. It's in our psyche to want information, and Maddie's disappearance gave us none. We thrive on knowledge, because we know what to do or how to act; but there was no knowledge with her. To this day, reading about the case gives me chills. Rob, however, lives the nightmare every single day, trying to dig through those lost memories to find out what happened, exactly, that summer day in Knocknaree.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Rob Ryan is now a detective in the Murder squad and, with the appearance of the body of a twelve year old girl, Rob and his partner Cassie take it upon themselves to find out the truth... even if it means Rob has to go back to the woods, where everything began.
In the Woods is emotionally investing. I don't think I've ever felt so many emotions, enough to make me stop reading for a few days. You go into it with doomed certainty that something terrible happens or the author just about plays Russian roulette with your feelings. I've never felt such a feeling of hollowness, sadness, abandonment, of complete unfulfilment. It sneaks up on you, guys, and you don't even realise it's happening. Next thing you know, you're sobbing, clutching a pack of cigarettes to your chest and reaching for the vodka with your spare hand.
Rob Ryan... I have a lot to say about him. He's the type of character you fall in love with, you hate, you scorn, you mock. He isn't just a made up person on paper, he's as real as you and I.
Adolescent conversations, no doubt, and made more so by the fact that Cassie and I brought out the brat in each other ("Bite me, Ryan," she would say, narrowing her eyes at me across the futon, and I would grab her arm and bite her wrist till she yelled for mercy), but I had never had them in my adolescence and I loved them, I loved every moment.
Not only are you bound to fall in love with Rob, but also with Cassie. The narration bringing you their friendship and partnership is incredibly stark, raw and real. You feel everything they feel, see it all through their eyes, and when things become ugly and desperate, you jump right onto that wagon with them.
Even after all this time, I find it difficult to describe them to you. They were so full of little things, things that at the time seemed insignificant and disconnected as the jumble of objects in some bizarre parlor game: faces and phrases and sitting rooms and phone calls, all running together into a single strobe-light blur. It was only much later, in the stale cold light of hindisight, that the little things rose up and rearranged themselves and clicked neatly into place to form the pattern we should have seen all along.
As I said before, it starts with this doomed certainty, with these mentions of "hindsight", that I found myself terrified and excited to carry on.
I wasn't disappointed. Tana French has become number one on my top-authors-to-read list. show less
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Although she overburdens the traditional police-procedural form with the weight of romance, psychological suspense, social history and mythic legend, she sets a vivid scene for her complex characters, who seem entirely capable of doing the unexpected. Drawn by the grim nature of her plot and the lyrical ferocity of her writing, even smart people who should know better will be able to lose show more themselves in these dark woods. show less
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Author Information
27+ Works 41,250 Members
Tana French grew up in Ireland, Italy, the US and Malawi. She trained as a professional actress at Trinity College, Dublin, and has worked in theatre, film and voiceover. Her first novel, In the Woods, won the 2007 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Her other books include The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, and The Secret Place. The show more Trespasser and The Witch Elm made the New York Times bestseller list. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Nel bosco
- Original title
- In the Woods
- Original publication date
- 2007-05-17
- People/Characters
- Adam Robert Ryan; Cassie Maddox; Sam O'Neill; Rosalind Frances Devlin; Katharine Bridget Devlin; Damien James Donnelly (show all 18); Jonathan Michael Devlin; Mr. O'Kelly; Jessica Devlin; Mark Conor Hanly; Jamie Rowan; Peter Joseph Savage; John Ryan; Cathal Mills; Sophie Miller; Sandra Scully; Margaret Devlin; Terence Andrews
- Important places
- Dublin, Ireland; Knocknaree, Dublin, Ireland; Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland; Dublin Castle, Dublin, Ireland; Monkstown, Dublin, Ireland
- Important events
- Operation Vestal
- Related movies
- Dublin Murders (2019 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- "Probably just somebody's nasty black poodle. But I've always wondered... What if it really was Him, and He decided I wasn't worth it?"
-- Tony Kushner, A Bright Room Called Day - Dedication
- For my father, David French,
and my mother, Elena Hvostoff-Lombardi - First words
- Picture a summer stolen whole from some coming-of-age film set in small-town 1950s.
- Quotations
- What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this--two things: I crave truth. And I lie.
We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches.
To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise specifications; we are so used to things transmuting into whatever... (show all) we would like them to be that it comes as a profound outrage to encounter death, stubbornly unspinnable, only and immutably itself.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," he told me reproachfully.
Maybe she, like me, would have loved the tiny details and the inconveniences even more dearly than the wonders, because they are the things that prove you belong.
I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect. My gift, or fatal flaw, is for nostalgia. I have sometimes been accused on demanding perfection, of rejecting heart's desires as soon as I get close enough that ... (show all)the mysterious impressionistic gloss disperses into plain solid dots, but the truth is less simplistic than that. I know very well that perfection is made up of frayed, off-struck mundanities. I suppose you could say my real weakness is a kind of long-sightedness: usually it is only at a distance, and much too late, that I can see the pattern.
The girls I dream of are the gentle ones, wistful by high windows or singing sweet old songs at a piano, long hair drifting, tender as apple blossom. But a girl who goes into battle beside you and keeps your back is a differe... (show all)nt thing, a thing to make you shiver. Think of the first time you slept with someone, or the first you fell in love: that blinding explosion that left you crackling to the fingertips with electricity, initiated and transformed. I tell you that was nothing, nothing at all, beside the power of putting your lives, simply and daily, into each other's hands.
I failed to understand the one crucial thing: where the real danger lay. I think this may have been, in the face of stiff competition, my single biggest mistake of all.
The wood had never been so lush or so feral. Leaves threw off dazzles of sunlight like sparklers and the colors were so bright you could live on them, the smell of fertile earth amplified to something heady as church wine.
If you believe only one thing I tell you, make it this: neither of us knew.
And then, too, I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn't find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there mysel... (show all)f.
Human beings, as I know better than most, can get used to anything. Over time, even the unthinkable gradually wears a little niche for itself in your mind and becomes just something that happened.
We think of mortality so little these days...
I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.
Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I:
A... (show all)s I am so will you be...
Homicidal satanic cults are the detective's version of yetis; no one has ever seen one and there is no proof that they exist, but one big blurry footprint and the media turn into a gibbering, foaming pack, so we have to act a... (show all)s though we take the idea at least semi-seriously. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I watched for a long time, until my mobile began vibrating insistently in my pocket and the rain started to come down more heavily, and then I put out my cigarette and buttoned my coat and headed back to the car.
- Publisher's editor
- Considine, Ciara; Fletcher, Sue; Harpster, Kendra
- Blurbers
- Unger, Lisa; Braffet, Kelly; Dierbeck, Lisa
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 823.92
- Canonical LCC
- PR6106.R457
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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