I’ll be the first to admit that, when I began reading Tana French’s “In The Woods,” – the first “Dublin Murder Squad” novel – I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it.
I’m a mystery lover, but a blood and gore abhorrer. Police procedurals – mysteries that focus on the police investigative process – are often too gritty and violent for my stomach. Add in the tendency of police media to become police-worshipping, and you have a mystery subgenre I seldom touch.
However, when I saw the novel on my English syllabus, I was willing (and required, technically) to give it a try.
Suffice to say, I devoured “In the Woods,” and immediately followed it up with the series’ sophomore entry: “The Likeness.” After this, I set out on a mission to find all the books and then read them over the course of winter break.
“The Dublin Murder Squad” is unique in format. Each book follows a different detective while setting up the primary investigator for the following story – in essence, it is a series made entirely of standalone novels.
“In The Woods” is helmed by Detective Rob Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox. “The Likeness” is led by Maddox and her handler, Frank Mackey. Mackey is the central character of the following novel, “Faithful Place.”
This style allows the audience to see the detectives in a multitude of lights – as a driver of action and as a complement to other characters. The effect is grounding, providing a humane and personal element to novels that would otherwise risk being excessively dark.
French writes with a deft hand and a keen eye.
The series is solid from start to finish; you won’t find anything resembling a ‘weak’ entry among the pages. However, some stick out from the others as being particularly well-plotted, particularly incisive or particularly thrilling. I recommend you sit down with the whole series, but if you decide not to, my review will let you know which singular book to devote your time to.
6. “The Secret Place”
The fifth entry in the series, “The Secret Place” is an investigation in two parts (and times). When a teenage boy turns up murdered on the campus of an all-girls school, an inquiry is launched and closed without a conclusion. A year later, Stephen Moran finds himself face-to-face with Holly Mackey, a student at the girl’s school and the daughter of his colleague Frank. Holly may have the key to finally solving the case, so Moran, along with the help of Antoinette Calloway, sets out to find the perpetrator and put the case to rest.
As much as I love Moran and Calloway, this novel’s departure from the structural norm reveals flaws in the story. While all the other books feature first-person narration, “The Secret Place” relies on a mixture of Moran’s observations and third-person assessments of the schoolgirls.
It works, but it feels starkly out of place from French’s other work.
Further, it admits to the reader that the mystery isn’t solvable without outside information. Mysteries rely on interaction between the audience and the story – the audience must feel like they are capable of coming to the correct conclusion. Therefore, the story’s admittance that this puzzle can’t be solved weakens the overall effect, despite the powerful conclusion.
5. “Faithful Place”
The third novel in the series, “Faithful Place” follows tough and disillusioned cop Frank Mackey as he reinvestigates the decades old disappearance of his teenage love. After years of trying to distance himself from his impoverished childhood community and complicated family, Mackey is forced to reopen old wounds while also dealing with the difficulties of co-parenting with his ex-wife. The more Mackey digs, the more connected it all appears.
Mackey is one of my favorite detectives featured in the series. He’s brash, blunt and often rude, but so self-aware that I find myself forgiving each of his transgressions. This may be because, for all his faults, I never doubted that Mackey was devoted to his daughter Holly and his pursuit of the truth.
“Faithful Place” is one of the best contextualized novels, exploring the experience of growing up in poverty in a community recently shaken by division and war. This is not just about an investigation but about the culture that allowed the crime to be perpetrated in the first place.
Unfortunately, this broad focus occasionally stretches the novel too thin. This novel functions more as a family drama than a murder mystery, and even then, it is caught between exploring Frank’s childhood and parenthood. It’s a lot for one story, even when French is able to balance all the plotlines.
4. “Broken Harbor”
Coincidentally, the fourth book in the series finds its way to fourth place on this list. “Broken Harbor” represents broken promises. The Spain family moves into a newly constructed neighborhood at the promise of a bustling, safe and thriving community. In reality, the neighborhood is unfinished and being left to waste away. Any remaining illusions of peace are shattered when Jennifer Spain is the only survivor of a brutal attack on her family. Brought onto the case for his no-nonsense approach to police work and the law, Mick Kennedy is prepared to use every trick in the book to bring justice to the Spain family. However, the longer he investigates, the less simple the crime becomes and the more disturbing the facts of the case appear.
The slow, almost meandering pace gives the audience plenty of time to get to know Kennedy and the unsettling facts of the case. At one point, I had to put the novel down because reading it while home alone was just too disquieting. It’s atmospheric, creepy, and the suspense lingers.
The only reason “Broken Harbor” doesn’t rank higher is that, despite the emphasis on Kennedy’s development, he isn’t the character to find the primary pieces of evidence or come to the correct conclusion. Moran is a good character, but a rookie solving the crime undermines the novel’s establishment of Kennedy as a respected and effective member of the force.
The conclusion of “Broken Harbor” is (no pun intended) arresting. It’s a powerful examination of human morality and the instability that comes when these belief systems break down. Kennedy is the ideal candidate for this examination to occur, embodying the inherent contradictions of man – he’s unyielding yet giving, straight-laced but flexible, careful yet brazen. This is a character study at its finest, and I wish Kennedy had been at the helm of his own story so that his transformation was a metamorphosis of his own making.
3. “In the Woods”
It is here that we reach the nebulous part of this review: the top three. All three of these books are near-perfection and representative of the finest of their genre.
“In the Woods” is French’s stellar debut novel. Featuring two timelines, “In the Woods” follows Rob Ryan as he investigates the murder of a young girl near the same woods he himself went missing in as a child. As Ryan tries to bring the deceased Katy Devlin justice, he finds himself increasingly drawn into his past – unable to forget his trauma and yet unable to remember how he survived and what occurred. Through Devlin’s case, Ryan hopes to find his own answers, but the twists of the case may leave him more confused than ever.
Ryan is the epitome of “the tortured detective.” He’s dark, brooding and often self-pitying to the point of annoyance. Still, Ryan’s provocative meditations on what it means to lose – both memory and safety – are enough to make me empathize with him. He may act juvenile, but his childhood was forever marred by his kidnapping – it doesn’t validate it, but it does explain the behavior.
Paired with Maddox, who is often infantilized by the men in her field, “In the Woods” is an interesting subversion of the coming-of-age story. This is a novel all about maturing and the transition (or lack thereof) from childhood to adulthood. It’s a heavy transition, and one that the novel never trivializes or simplifies. French is skilled in her exploration of the ripples of crime, especially when it comes to children.
I can appreciate, too, that “In the Woods” is intentionally unsatisfying in its ending. This story does not attempt to placate the audience, nor does it promise a world in which justice always succeeds. It does remind the audience, though, that someone will always seek the truth, no matter how heavy the burden.
2. “The Trespasser”
It is impressive that the sixth and final novel in French’s series should be strong enough to take second place.
“The Trespasser” follows Antoinette Calloway. Though not the first female detective to take center stage in the series, nor the first to experience institutional sexism, Calloway’s experiences with misogyny towards herself and victims provide a wholly unique perspective. Calloway is called in to investigate the murder of Aislinn Murray, a young woman found dead in her own home. Murray’s murder is a distinctly gendered crime. As suspicious boyfriends and ex-lovers are revealed, Calloway is eager to pin one of them for the crime. However, the more she learns about Murray, the more Calloway believes Murray’s death is related not only to sex, but to corruption within the police department.
There’s something uniquely unsettling about “The Trespasser.” Maybe it’s the way Murray’s case parallels so many real-life instances of young women blamed for violence committed against them. Maybe it’s the way Calloway is repeatedly and systematically reduced and ignored despite her expertise. Maybe it’s the way the novel displays how corruption infects and destroys trust in public offices. More likely, though, it is the combination of these things that gives “The Trespasser” its power.
Calloway is a perfect protagonist. She’s sharp and aware, yet feels the pressures to play the politics of work in a way all women in professional environments can relate to. She is a modern woman, trying her best to establish herself without letting the system get her down.
French’s portrayal of Calloway is deeply empathetic. Each time she encounters a roadblock, the audience feels her exhaustion. Each time she faces another setback, another unfair meeting with her advisor or another unsuccessful appeal to expose the corruption within the Dublin squad, the audience feels the hurt and disappointment as if it were their own.
The conclusion of the novel is cathartic, though not peaceful. It’s a scream of defiance in the midst of suppression – a refusal to accept injustice, a cry to rail against corruption.
1. “The Likeness”
I am Detective Cassie Maddox’ biggest supporter.
After being failed by her colleagues in “In the Woods,” Maddox opts to retire from the homicide department. She plans to stay far away from murder until Frank Mackey contacts her with a case that she is uniquely situated to solve. When the body of Lexie Madison is found, she has no ties to the outside world save for the isolated country home where she lives along with her friends. Her identity is falsified, and she has no paper trail. Perhaps most startling, Madison is a dead-ringer for Maddox (pun intended). Rather than bombard her close-knit group of friends with outside questions, Maddox and Mackey devise a plan: have Maddox assume Madison’s identity and return to the house to suss out the culprit. Hesitant as she is to return to homicide, Maddox can’t let Madison’s death go unsolved and so dives headfirst into the twisting, dangerous world of Madison’s closest friends.
Admittedly, there’s a large suspension of disbelief required to read “The Likeness.” If French wasn’t so good at richly drawing her characters, and if Maddox herself wasn’t such a compelling investigator, I wouldn’t have tried to overcome the mental hurdle. I’m glad I set aside my reservations, though, because “The Likeness” is an insidious story of friendship and love gone awry.
Here, French’s skill for tying the personal and professional together shines the brightest. Maddox is experiencing change in her personal life, navigating a changing career and an intensifying romantic connection. Not to mention, she’s still recovering from the grisly crime committed in “In the Woods.” Now, she finds herself at the center of a group of friends who love one another so much they’ve become obsessed. The larger the web of Madison’s life becomes, the more Maddox realizes she must solve the crime to put the deceased to rest and to save herself so that she might heal and finally be able to live again. It’s fascinating to see the one-sided relationship between Maddox and Madison unfold.
The novel is contemplative and nuanced, a testament to the power of humans to heal and a reminder that we do terrible things in the name of love. What stays with me the most, though, is the haunting final line: “I hope in that half hour she lived all her million lives.”
A Final Thought
Don’t be daunted by the density of French’s works – both in prose and pages. “The Dublin Murder Squad” is a series of propulsive reads, anchored by strong main characters and multifaceted dissections of the best and worst parts of humanity. They are wonderful credits to the mystery genre and a great series for those looking for twists and turns without sacrificing character development or plot. They are simply superb.