In The Woods
I recently finished the novel “In The Woods” by first time author Tana French. I had never heard a thing about it before I picked it up at Borders about two weeks ago. I read the back cover, then the first chapter. Twenty minutes later I was in the check out line – book in hand.
In The Woods is the first book since In Cold Blood ( which I read junior year of high school ) to give me nightmares.
Set in the suburbs of Dublin, In the Woods is a multilayered story that combines the gritty worldliness of a police procedural with the eerie chills of a psychological thriller. Think Law and Order: SVU meets The X-Files.
Detective Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, must find a child-killer who has done his dirty work in the same woods where Ryan, twenty years before, was the sole survivor of a bloody incident that left him with a blanked-out memory. Looming on the horizon: the obliteration of the crime scene by a new highway.
Is the new murder related to the earlier disappearances? Are the anti-highway protesters involved? Will pursuing the case unlock Ryan’s memory – and does he really want it unlocked?
When the killer was finally revealed I must admit, I was not SUPER shocked at who it turned out to be, though I was shocked of the motive behind it. However, it’s the story of what ( may or may not have ) happened to Rob Ryan and his two childhood pals 20 years earlier that had me spooked and re -reading chapters trying to piece together the mystery myself.
I recommend this book to the casual reader and I can’t recommend it enough to those of you out there who like a good crime novel with a “whodunnit” storyline.
And while a few mysteries in the book may leave some scratching your heads, the answers are all there for you, it’s just a matter of whether or not you let yourself believe them.
July 8, 2010 at 9:47 am
So, almost a year later, I finally read this book. It sparked my interest as soon as I read this synopsis. It was a great read, and I’d like to discuss theories with ya someday about it. Have you read the follow-up about cassie?