In the Woods

It's not often I read mysteries, for some reason, so it was luck that I picked this one up. I enjoyed it immensely--the writing, the character development, and the plot.

This is a first-person narrative, from Rob Ryan's point of view. He and Cassie Maddox are the two main investigators in this tale, and their characters are very well developed, as is their relationship with each other. In the beginning, Rob and Cassie have a delightful friendship, with banter and picadillos that make for fun reading. Both have some real sadness in their pasts, and have coped with them in different ways.

As part of the Dublin Murder Squad, these two are investigating the murder of a 12-year-old girl, and are eventually joined by investigator Sam O'Neill. The threesome develop a pleasant friendship, one that seems to echo the situation Ryan knew in his boyhood--and still pines for.

As Ryan, Maddox, and O'Neill struggle to come up with leads and motives, many intriguing facts about this small town of Knocknaree and its denizens come to light. One of the reasons I thought this mystery was so good was its complexity--even if one guesses who must have done the job, the motive is illusive until the end.

Running parallel to the mystery are social changes within the Ryan-Maddox-O'Neill trio. In the end, for Ryan, there seems to be yet another echo of an earlier experience. I must add that Ryan did not paint himself as a wonderful person, and honestly, I thought he behaved reprehensively some of the time. Perhaps I should simply say, he could be a real jerk. Despite that, however, I did not hate him so much that I would avoid reading more about him. It's complicated...

I was very happy for Maddox and O'Neill. Especially for Maddox.

I have been recommended the Dublin Murder Squad by Tana French multiple times, not sure why. So I finally decided to pick up the first book In the Woods, which tells the story of Detective Rob Ryan and Detective Cassie Maddox assigned to the murder of a twelve year old girl. More than twenty years ago Ryan and two friends got lost in the same woods. He returned, but what happened to his friends remains a mystery.

This was a fresh and dark psychological suspense, which I enjoyed far more than I expected. My problem with best-seller crime novels is they tend to be very formulaic and unoriginal. Tana French managed to keep the same format but still made the book stand out. I think the chemistry between Ryan and Maddox played a big part of this. I was shipping the two and hoping they will end up together. I hear this series follows different characters in the Dublin murder squad which I am worried about, I want more from these two characters.

This review originally appeared on my blog; www.knowledgelost.org/book-reviews/genre/thriller/mini-reviews-crime-edition/