Book Review: In the Woods by Tana French

In the Woods by Tana French
Publisher: ‎ Viking
Publication Date: May 17, 2007
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

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.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

Back in 1984, twelve-year old Adam Ryan was found in the woods, scared, with blood soaked shoes and no memory of how he got there. The two friends he was playing with are missing. Their bodies have never been found and no one knows what happened to them.

Back in 1984, twelve-year-old Adam Ryan was found in the woods, scared, with blood-soaked shoes and no memory of how he got there. The two friends he was playing with are missing. Their bodies have never been found and no one knows what happened to them.

Now Adam goes by Rob Ryan and after going away to an English boarding school after the incident in his childhood, he’s a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad. No one he works with knows that he’s the boy from the woods. Now the body of a 12-year-old girl who was raped and murdered is found in the same woods. Rob and his partner Cassie have been assigned to the case. Will Rob’s childhood trauma in the woods affect his handling of the girl’s case? Is her case related to what happened to him and his friends?

I’m not a huge crime reader but I know Tana French is really popular so I thought I’d give one of her books a whirl. In the Woods got off to an incredibly slow start. I didn’t get to that “can’t put it down” phase that I expect to have when reading a mystery or thriller until over 200 pages in. I almost gave up several times and did actually set it aside to read another book and then came back to it. The last 200 pages or so flew by – I read them in just a couple of days! It took me weeks to read the first part though.

I enjoyed Rob and Cassie as a team, especially their rapport when interrogating suspects. Their personal relationship made me cringe a bit, but I think it was supposed to. Overall, the characters were really well-developed. I thought the plot was great – there were twists and surprises, but it was just such a slow build. It’s hard to say much more without spoiling something. If this book were just 150 pages shorter, I would have rated it higher.

Oh, the other thing that you should know is that not all the loose ends are resolved at the end of the book, and from a cursory internet search, it doesn’t look like they are resolved in subsequent books in the series either. This actually didn’t bother me even though I am usually one to like everything tied up in a nice little bow at the end of a book.