Ratings40
Average rating4.2
The masterful Richard & Judy pick, from the Sunday Times bestselling author. Winner of the Irish Book Awards Crime Fiction Book of the Year. 'A TRULY GREAT WRITER' Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl 'ONE OF THE BEST CRIME WRITERS WORKING TODAY' Guardian You can beat one killer. Beating your own squad is a whole other thing. Being on the Dublin Murder squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed. Her working life is a stream of thankless cases and harassment. Antoinette is tough, but she's getting close to the breaking point. The new case looks like a regular lovers' quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty and lying dead next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There's nothing unusual about her - except that Antoinette has seen her somewhere before. And her death won't stay neat. Other detectives want her to arrest Aislinn's boyfriend, fast. There's a shadowy figure at the end of Antoinette's road. And everything they find out about Aislinn takes her further from the simple woman she seemed to be. Antoinette knows the harassment has turned her paranoid, but she can't tell just how far gone she is. Is this the case that will make her career - or break it? 'ONE OF THE BEST THRILLER WRITERS WE HAVE' Observer
Featured Series
6 primary booksDublin Murder Squad is a 6-book series with 6 primary works first released in 2007 with contributions by Tana French.
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My preordered copy came in the day before Rosh Hashanah. On the second day, after services were over (my synagogue runs short and under-populated on the second day), the house quiet without electricity and my toddler at daycare, the idea of just reading a little was unbelievably tempting, albeit borderline sacrilegious. And of course, once I started, Tana French's writing was addictive.
I remember very little of the “central” mystery. What I remember about is the creeping, burning embarrassment of self-recognition reading about how Antoinette Conway nearly let a mystery go unsolved because she was so caught up in how others saw her. Many mystery novels have the “stupid plot” error, where an idiot could solve the mystery if they simply followed the obvious clues, and so the writers have to make the brilliant detective look over the one clear next step to prevent the novel from early closure. In this case, there's no inconsistency: French's novel is literally about the narrative that Conway tells about herself of being an isolated loner. The mystery is window-dressing for the consequences of letting yourself be seduced into such a narrative, and the hard climb back out.
So in the end, it was pretty apropos of the holiday – I'm definitely guilty of perpetuating negative self-narratives, and choosing to fail rather than challenge them. And I felt inspired by French to try to do better this year.
What can I say about this book that others haven't said? Just read it. In fact read every book that has Tana French's name on it. You will not be disappointed.
I certainly hope there will be another book after this one.
A solidly entertaining and occasionally moving crime novel. I found myself wondering throughout if all the inner-monologue/focus on the main character's mental health and feelings was necessary but once I finished I was glad that Tana French spent so much time digging deep into her (anti)heroine's neurosis and history.
Ten stars. TEN STARS! My favorite book of the series, my favorite book of the year...stunning.