Faithful Place

I was fully expecting not to be enamored of this book. Even though I loved French's other two books, I knew that the main protagonist in this story is a character I hadn’t especially been taken with in his brief appearances in the first two books. So I put off reading this one, and then was floored to discover almost from the outset that I totally loved it! I even dithered around at the end, so I wouldn’t finish it too fast!

Francis (“Frank”) Mackey is a 41-year old divorced undercover detective in Dublin with partial custody he shares with his ex-wife Olivia of precocious nine-year-old Holly. Twenty-two years before, at age 19, he was all set to run off to England with the love of his life, the beautiful Rosy Daly, but Rosy show more didn't show up. Frank never really got over it, and he never went back home.

Now his sister Jackie has called him and told him that some renovators of an abandoned tenement on his old street found Rosy’s suitcase, complete with the ferry tickets to England and her birth certificate. Frank cannot avoid making that painful trip back to his childhood home and back to the past in order to find out what happened.

Frank’s not much welcome at first; to the crowded and hard-up tenants of his street - Faithful Place, cops are anathema. And some murders that are discovered after Frank reappears put him under suspicion as well. But if Frank is ever to let go of Rosy in his mind and his heart, he has to know what transpired twenty-two years before. As Frank knew, and even his ex-wife knew, “all the time I was married to Olivia and pretending to belong in Dalkey, I was waiting for Rosie Daly to walk through every door.”

Discussion: The characters of this book are superbly rendered, and in such thick and colorful Dublin dialect you may need an online dictionary of Irish slang to find out what everyone is saying.

The range and depth of the portrayals is remarkable. There are enough simmering passions in this story to set off a volcano, and the raw sorrow that sits like open sores on the characters don’t heal in your own heart once you’ve closed the book. I’ve been talking to my husband about Frank and his brothers like I’ve known them all my life, and I feel that I have!

Frank loved Rosy something fierce, and allows he would have died for her, “back in the day.” He admits, “I had spent my whole adult life growing around a scar shaped like Rosie Daly’s absence.”

Much of the story is about the crazy stew in Frank’s life of poverty and a dysfunctional family and a lack of hope and Rosie: Rosie with her bright copper hair and dazzling smile erased all the ugly parts of Frank’s life. She provided the drop of magic “that stopped you being just another futureless dole bunny moping in his bedsit.” But the magic came to an abrupt end on that night back in December, 1985.

To some extent the role that Rosie played in Frank’s life is now filled by his daughter Holly. She brings him serenity and love and worry and a heart-rending concern over child-rearing that is touching and inspiring. And Frank would die for Holly now, just as he would have died for Rosie, back when she was the one who took his breath away.

The repercussions of the biting, acrid family dynamics of the families on Faithful Place are shown by the depiction of the pain-filled lives of those who got caught in its lethal embrace. I loved that French really made me see all sides of what happened to the people there, including the murderer, so that I actually felt sorry for the murderer even as I felt devastated by the murders. Can there be healing or forgiveness for any of these people? The book ends on a note of hope for some, but not for all. It is truly a stunning story. And if you really want to know how boundless is the grief of what happened, go back and read the prologue after you have finished the last chapter; the knowledge you have gained makes some of those details back in the beginning pierce you like fresh wounds to an already tattered soul. show less

Brilliant work -- less of a "mystery" than a full-throated deep dive into a troubled and dysfunctional Irish family. I became so entangled in the story of the Mackey family through the lens of the police detective Frank Mackey that my curiosity about the killer's identity became almost irrelevant -- and of course eventually it was obvious but almost beside the point in the deliberate and slow unfolding of the long kept secrets and lies. Books this slow paced can often seem tedious, but I was riveted to hear from each family member and watch Tana French dig into their psyches. Each person felt fully realized and familiar, if not likeable. Of course Detective Mackey solves the crimes, but their solution becomes close to the Mackey show more family's undoing. Frank Mackey, his daughter Holly and the Mackey family will stay with me awhile. show less

Tana French has crafted a most unusual series: Each succeeding book focuses on a character who was at most a peripheral player in the previous one. Here, in the third entry in the Dublin Murder Squad series, we are paired with Frank Mackey, who was the boss of Cassie Maddox, the heroine of Book 2, The Likeness, who was herself a secondary character in the first book, In the Woods. It shouldn't work to keep shifting focus with each book, but it does.

Faithful Place is the street where Frank Mackey grew up, in an aggressively working class Dublin family. He planned to elope with a neighbor girl, but their plans went awry when Rosie never showed up at the rendezvous. All these years later, he's still wounded by her apparent abandonment. show more When it begins to become clear that Rosie may not have dumped him willingly after all, Frank is reluctantly drawn back in to contact with the dysfunctional family he left behind on that long-ago night. As he investigates what happened to Rosie, he has to come to terms with the idea that the answer lies within the Mackey clan.

I love how French never succumbs to genre stereotypes as she crafts these mysteries, and how vividly alive her characters seem. Each seems distinct and yet familiar at the same time, as if these are people we have met or at least heard about from a friend. I was kept guessing and caring deeply about Frank and the rest of the cast right to the end. show less

This one is so terribly, intensely sad that finishing it left me emotionally exhausted. Not a good one to finish on my work lunch break, because what I'd really like right now is to go lie in a soft bed in a dark room, burrow under the covers, and indulge myself in wretchedness. Seriously, this was one gut punch after another, especially for the last 100 pages. Nobody triumphs, nobody gets out clean, nobody is truly happy, and nobody is a saint or a villain or an innocent. But I loved every second of it, every darkly beautiful line or image, every desperate scenario, and every time she convinced me to both love and loathe and pity her characters, all at the same time.

So, I've concluded that Tana French is some kind of witch, because show more even though I hate being sad, I will read this again. show less

When it comes to a mystery narrated in first person, voice can make or break the story, regardless of how enthralling the plot points.

Tana French's mystery Faithful Place, part of the Dublin Murder Squad series, is a testament to how crafting a narrator's voice well can elevate an already-good mystery into a memorable, engrossing read.

A vivid, distinct voice, with a realistic syntax, can transport the reader right next to the narrator wherever he or she takes us, whether it's in a bar or sitting quietly in a darkened room, listening only to the protagonist's thoughts.

French appears to do this effortlessly.

Within the first several pages, I found myself half in love with Frank Mackey, the Dublin Undercover detective who pulled himself out show more of Faithful Place, just one street in a neighborhood whose residents perpetually teeter precariously near poverty.

There, Mackey grew up with an even more mercilessly dysfunctional family, surrounded by a brood of siblings all trapped in the cruel grip of an alcoholic parent and unstable -- but certainly Catholic, mind you -- mother.

Mackey escaped by attempting to leave with his girl...and when she didn't show, becoming a cop, which coming from Faithful Place is a betrayal of sorts not easily forgiven and never, ever forgotten.

French manages to convey that without ever once stating it overtly, just one of many examples of how she uses Mackey's distinct narrative tone to communicate unspoken context.

Another example is how the reader learns of Mackey's upbringing, told out of chronological ordger through well-crafted flashbacks that create sharp, lingering pictures of a complex childhood that fall into place like shards of a broken mirror.

Yet for all of that, French still manages to pepper the story with sharp wit and warm, comforting scenes of a father caring for his daughter.

The story, like the people within in it, is not simply one thing. None of the characters or ancillary story lines are simple. Mackey and his siblings' childhood may not have been idyllic, but there are moments, though few, of love and family fidelity. His neighborhood is not the sterile suburbia he attempted to live in with his ex-wife, but it has a code and social moorings of its own.

Finally, the personal nature of the mystery -- the body uncovered in the basement of an abandoned house that Makey and the other kids on the street used as an ad-hoc hideaway is the body of the girl he was going to elope with -- adds a welcome element of personal investment and frustration to the story that elevates the building tension.

As I said, I haven't read any of the other books in this series and have avoided looking them up for fear of spoilers, but I am eagerly looking forward to doing so. But the novel more than stands on its own and shouldn't be passed over, even by those who are not interested in picking up another series. show less

Faithful Place is the third book in French's Dublin Murder Squad series and centres upon undercover detective Frank Mackey. Twenty two years earlier 19 year old Frank had been planning to escape the harsh life of the Dublin inner city flat he shared with his family on Faithful Place, arranging to elope to England with his girlfriend Rosie. But Rosie didn't meet him on the night of the elopement, leaving a note suggesting she had changed her mind. Frank took his chance to escape anyway and built a new life. Now, he is called back to Faithful Place on the discovery of Rosie's suitcase hidden in a derelict house and soon finds himself trying to discover what really happened, whilst back in the clutches of his lunatic parents and show more traumatised siblings.
For me this was the best of this series so far. The dark themes it explores were softened by the beautiful language that pulls you into the world of the Dublin tenements and the complex loyalties of family and community. Faithful Place is a story of love and loss with fractured families and a cold-case murder. Even though I spotted the killer at a very early stage it didn't matter, as the plot and brilliantly drawn characters pulled me in and held me firmly. This whole series of books are clever novels which are not so much about the crimes they cover as the characters journeys and the relationships they make and break during the investigations. I like the way each boo in the series picks up a character from the previous one (and not necessarily a central one) to be the focus. A cracking good read. show less

This was a great read - a compelling main character, fully developed secondary characters, a strong sense of place, and questions of family, loyalty, and justice. Frank Mackey thinks he's left behind his working class roots and dysfunctional family; he's not been home for over 20 years and maintains only a tenuous connection with one of his sisters. But he's pulled home for a cold case involving his old girlfriend who stood him up 22 years ago on the verge of their departure together for England.

There's a lot going on in the book, and I loved how French managed to weave all the strings together and to draw parallels and connections between Frank then and now. The scenes with Frank and his daughter are so well done, and his inner turmoil show more about how to be a good father when he had no example is heartbreaking in many ways. This is a pretty dark book in its take on one's ability to move beyond one's past only so far. And how as much as we'd like to leave certain things behind, it's impossible because they helped to form us and so stay with us, woven into our very beings. show less