A cover for Lithuanian edition, Creepy, IKR!
I must thank two of my GR friends, Ginger and Michael, for turning my attention to this peculiar book! Thanks, guys
Interesting plot with mysteries and stuff.
The story started off very well, with funny bits, conversations and I was hooked in from the very beginning, The first person narrative really helped and I liked following Rob Ryan in his investigation, he made me a partner and I love it in my detective reads.
The grim and real police work, the deadends, the annoying bureaucracy and the final countdown when you reach the very essence of the story, Smooth and gripping, huh Well, it wasnt so all the time,
The first two fourths of the story were really interesting to read, because the writing is very detailed and expresses a wellbuilt mystery, the pages just flew upon my eyes.
The description of the places, surroundings is gripping and simply charming, I liked the common people there, with their ordinary life, was disturbed by their dark side.
The atmosphere in dark moments was really effective enough to inspire horror and keep me wondering, what is there between the façade of this place.
I mentioned a problem with smoothness and I stumbled upon it when reaching the ¾ of the book, The plot is really gripping but I lost the pull when the main character decided that its more “interesting” to whine endlessly, bathing in selfloathing while I really REALLY wanted to know what happened further in the investigation.
It just dragged the story into long and a bit boring phase with lots of eyerolling for me, But to my great joy, this changed when I reached to the final part of the book,
Memorable characters I can root foror hate a lot!,
The story centers upon two colleagues and best friends at the same time, they supplement each other, they are interesting and fun to observe.
Until. . until one of them decides to play the drama queen for too long! Oh, I know what youd say: But this character experienced so much trouble in the past! I understand it, but it doesnt leave the right to hurt another character who experienced some psychological harm, too.
Moreover, knowing it and being a total selfish bastard with a friend whos closest to you!
Remembering all the characters, I think that the author did a great job, they are well fleshedout and complicated personalities with strengths and weaknesses.
Some may look minor and unnecessary but its def not so, they all have a place in making this book outstanding and move the story forward.
I loved the psychological study of the human character there a lot, the sneak peeks into psychopaths mind and the awesome mind of the person who sees it and cracks the mysteries open! Its a gem in this book.
And her name is Cassie
Some fun parts from the book
Cassie moved her stuff to the desk beside mine, and Costello got stuck with Quigley and gave us sad reproachful looks for weeks, like a martyred Labrador.
“I think Ill transfer somewhere nice and peaceful, like ERU,” I said,
“ERU needs fast response times, sweetie,” Cassie said, “If it takes you half an hour to decide what to do with an imaginary worm, theyre not gonna want you in charge of hostages.
”
At that point OKelly banged into the squad room and demanded, “Where is everyone” Cassie hit AltTab fast one of her worms was named OSmelly and she had been purposefully sending him into hopeless situations, to watch him get blown up by exploding sheep.
All in all, this book is not a happy story, but it is a gripping read with suspense, interesting detective spices, peculiar and mostly charming character development, disturbing insight into whats behind the nice surface of the ordinary life.
Not sure if I continue with the series, but we'll see
Now this is my kind of book, This is the best book I have read in a very long time! In the Woods has been languishing on my list forever, probably because it has mixed reviews.
I am thankful I finally gave it a shot,
Tana French writes beautifully, but in a way that does not hinder the flow of the story, The protagonist, young Irish cop Rob Ryan, tells the story in retrospect, This is done subtly with realtime Rob interjecting only sporadically until the end when he directly delivers the epilogue, I found this technique unique and refreshing, Ms. French pens a stunningly good character study in this novel, presenting her protagonist with profound depth, warts and all, Despite him bringing much of his misery onto himself, my heart couldnt help but break for him over the last third of the book as he struggled to make sense of what was happening.
I havent felt that invested in a character in a long while, Though I did not love Rob as much as I love Angela Marsons Kim Stone or Cody McFadyens Smoky Barrett, my emotions were every bit as wrapped up in him.
I know I will never forget Rob Ryan,
Ms. French writes her characters with a great deal of psychological overlay, I looked up her “credentials” and was shocked to find she does not have a background in psychology, Yes, she is that good,
For readers who are interested in a quicklypaced, plotdriven mystery, you wont find it here, This is a real slow burner, but one that kept me enthralled, The crime plot consists of two threads, one that took place over twenty years previous to the other, Are these events connected This is a big question, Many readers who did not give the book a good rating had issues relating to a singular loose end in the plot, I usually dont care for significant loose ends either, but I had no problem with the way this particular story evolved, The ending was true to the character of Rob Ryan anything else would have been Hollywood, All the other issues were wrapped up beautifully,
I think Tana French writes masterfully, She has quickly risen to “must read everything” prominence on my toread list, I strongly recommend In the Woods to everyone interested in a hauntingly compelling, characterdriven, slow burner of a story,stars.
"Not any more, In ways too dark and crucial to be called metaphorical, I never left that wood, "
I know that I ought to gather my thoughts to organize them or whatever I usually do before writing a review, especially when the last page let me shellshocked as sitelinkIn the Woods did.
But I can't. I'm leaving tomorrow and I'm not one for writing reviews weeks after having read the damn book, I'm actually in awe of people who manage to do just that, I think that it says something about me : in the end, I'm an emotional reader, and I'll always hold to the bewilderment and wonder I feel when fictional stories get to me in such a strong level.
And I just began too many sentences with I, Ugh. Bear with me, would you
sitelinkIn
the Woods affected me in a way that I didn't expect, slowly enveloping me in its sickeningly sweet lure.
Little by little, I've been rocked by a false sense of safety, by the discreet and uncertain laughs, proofs of Rob and Cassie's complicity, Of course I saw the warnings, the insights, yet I chose to ignore the bad taste in my mouth, the inexorable growth of my doubts and then the pang of betrayal and sadness.
God, this book let me so fucking sad, Hollowed. There's nothing, really, that I could say to convince you to give it a chance, and many reviewers did it before me and with much more eloquence.
So I'll only say this : rarely did I feel that the character's personality whether they're likeable or not was so besides the point as when reading this book.
Is Rob a jerk Maybe, but I don't care, he's real, all of them are real to me, I care so much, og my god, do I care for him still, Did I guess some clues before he did Yes, actually, I did, but again, it changes nothing to the way I feel right now, to the sheer awe still palpable in me when I'm writing these clumsy words.
I am frustrated, does that show I'm just so sick of writing that, it's not perfect but god, I'm so fed up with that sentence and I write it way too often.
Nothing's perfect. Life is far from perfect or everybody would look at populists and say, What The Hell, do I look like an idiot to you!, sitelinkTana French pictures the unfairness and imperfection of it all perfectly, It's enough for me. Of course it's enough.
PS. One day later and I'm still dazzled and yeah, so very much sad, It will linger, I just know it,
For more of my reviews, please visit:
sitelink,
“What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is thistwo things: I crave truth, And I lie. ”
Adam Ryan was the surviving member of a trio of Irish children lost in the woods a generation ago, Theres been no sign of the other two all these years, He was found injured with someone elses blood in his shoes, and to this day he cant remember what happened, other than a feeling of terror.
His family moved from Dublin to England, where he acquired a polished English accent and adopted his middle name, Robert, as his first.
He is now Detective Rob Ryan, a wellspoken Englishman who need never return to Knocknaree,
But the murder ofyearold Katy Devlin in his old home town stirs the memories of the locals and sends Rob to investigate.
Wearing his unrecognisable new persona, he returns to the village with his trusted partner and best friend, Cassie, As close as they areand they ARE closeCassie knows nothing of this part of his past,
Rob tells US his story, however, and reminisces often about the idyllic summer days when he and Peter and Jamie played in the woods, taking picnics to the old castle, climbing trees, free to explore as long as they were home for dinner.
But he cant bring himself to talk about it Cassie, which is unusual for them,
This is the cloud that hangs over his part in the investigation, Katys body was found on an archaeological dig site bordering the woods, One of the adults involved in the case was a troublesome youth when Adam/Rob was a boy, but he doesnt make the connection immediately.
When he does, this sends his mind off in another direction in the past,
They begin by investigating all of the people on the dig site and the family, Katys father, has been leading an active protest group trying to preserve the site and stop the motorway thats about to demolish it, Was her murder a warning to him Whats the motive for someone murdering a child
When hes alone, Ryan remembers the fun he and his friends had as children in the woods and then has the occasional gutwrenching flashback to what he does recall of the “incident”.
But he keeps drawing a blank when it comes to details or of what happened to Jamie and Peter,
The parts of the book I really enjoyed were the characters, the relationships, and the psychology that goes into investigating, . . and the sense of place, I realise the investigation is the reason for the story, but the author has a lot more to offer than a whodunit,
Place.
“The wood is all flicker and murmur and illusion, Its silence is a pointillist conspiracy of a million tiny noisesrustles, flurries, nameless truncated shrieks its emptiness teems with secret life, scurrying just beyond the corner of your eye.
”
Truncated shrieks, secret life scurrying, Anyone whos spent time listening quietly in the bush will recognise how silent it sometimes isnt,
“It was your basic Irish summer day, irritatingly coy, all sun and skidding clouds and jackknifing breeze, ready at any second to make an effortless leap into bucketing rain or blazing sun or both.
”
I have to say that Aussies will tell you this is also true of Melbourne and the southern coasts of Australia, Heat from the inland deserts, ice from Antarctica, depending which way the winds blowing, But I digress.
Detectives:
“What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective, Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass, It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and variation on deception.
”
As he said in the opening, he craves the truth, but he lies to get it,
Police partners:
“How can I ever make you understand Cassie and me, . . underlying everything we did, she was my partner, I dont know how to tell you what that word, even now, does to me what it means, . . the power of putting your lives, simply and daily, into each others hands, ”
Interviewing kids:
“Kids are unlikely to be frank about their siblings when their parents are around, and once a kid lies, especially a kid.
. . young and confused , the lie becomes fixed in his mind and the truth recedes to the background, ”
Why kids might wander off with someone, as explained by someone who did:
“I knew it was only a shed and he was only a groundskeeper, but at the same time I thought this might just be my chance to be one of the children who go through the wardrobe into the other world, and I couldnt stand the thought of spending the rest of my life knowing Id missed it.
”
Its a long book and a few slower patches kept it from quite hitting the fivestar mark for me, but getting to know Rob and Cassie and Sam and the other characters made it well worth rounding up.
I gather that Frenchs Dublin Squad series can be read as standalone mysteries, but Ill be trying to find them in order, .