In the Woods
Ratings319
Average rating3.7
3.5
Maybe it was me? Wrong time? I enjoyed a good stretch of this, there's some excellent writing, but it did go on forever. Also I don't think you can go into this for the mystery. The mystery is just the frame to hang a larger story, which I generally liked, but also became tedious. Perhaps this was because the narrator, Adam Robert Ryan, is a bit of a twerp. I know he has reasons for being how he is but ... I dunno. I wanted to slap him more often than not, for being a bad cop, for being stupid, and for being a terrible friend. But that's just me.
I'll probably read the next one so I'll just shut it + I want to see the tv adaptation.
I was going to read the Likeness (the second book) but wanted to read them in order and picked up this one instead. Feels like I wasted my time.
It's pretty to read in some parts but super unsatisfying. If the book was cut in half and only focused on the Katy Devlin murder it would have been 4 stars, quicker to get through, interesting, and satisfying. The style of writing where it cuts from being in the story to the main (super unlikeable) character talking at you from the future was confusing and not necessary at all. Two stars because I did finish it, enjoyed the prose, and learned some new words, but I'd skip it.
I don't think this is a bad book, for a mystery/thriller it is interestingly written. If you are looking for something along the lines of Wallander, Gone Girl or Broadchurch you may enjoy this. It is a bleak mystery with a bleak outlook.
However, it's not as unpredictable as it seems to think and the directions it goes are so disappointing and depressing. I found myself angry at it.
The biggest disappointments are Spoiler filled so read on with that in mind:
I can't believe they set up such an amazing friendship that made the point that straight men and women can be friends without romance and then pulled a “just kidding no they can't” 80% of the way through the book. It was disappointing and sexist.
The characterization of Rosalind was tired. It was Gone Girl all over again and it had the nerve to imply that this twist wasn't obvious. The book straight up said “you were fooled too weren't you?” To which I had to go, no I wasn't even a little.
It was frustrating and disappointing
There is no satisfying conclusion to this book, which is not the point of a mystery novel. Other than that I loved it.
A very interesting character study in the form of a murder mystery. French's mastery of voice is truly incredible.
But I think this book has some first novel problems. The voice over in the beginning warning about lies, for instance. Also, the true bad guy was immediately recognizable. I'll avoid spoilers, but it's a very old trope.
It is interesting how this book does not have a happy ending at all. It makes me curious about how the rest of the series is set up. I'll definitely come back to the Dublin Murder Squad later on.
Best mystery I have read this year. [a:Tana French 138825 Tana French https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1277505771p2/138825.jpg] is now on my must read list.
Having heard so many good things about the books of Tana French, I am really surprised how much I did not like this book. It has been a real chore to finish it, perhaps because not only did I not like the narrator but I found him unconvincing.
There is a point near the end of the book, after the reveal of the real “brains” behind the main crime, where the narrator says he had never suspected that person but nor had we - except I reckon an awful lot of readers will have suspected from only a third of the way in.
Listen Ms French, I know I picked this for the book club but I needed my sleep last night - instead I was up until 3am because foolish me thought I could just read a couple chapters and STOP. Not only that, but you wrote a thinker too, so I'm still trying to figure out how much of an unreliable narrator do we have here? What does it all mean? Where does the series go after this? WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOODS ????
begrudging sigh
Book one of the Dublin Murder Squad and I can see why it elicits such devotion from fans. French certainly delivers a gritty crime novel that kicks off when 12 year old Katy Devlin is found dead at an archeological dig, displayed on an ancient sacrificial altar. But it's intertwined with the investigating detective's history there. 20 years ago Adam Ryan was discovered nearly catatonic backed up against a tree his nails digging into the bark, his shoes filled with blood and absolutely no memory of what transpired those few hours before that led to the disappearance of his two closest childhood friends. It's been a closely guarded secret and now as Detective Rob Ryan he can't help but wonder if the two cases spanning decades might not be related or at least shake some memory of his past loose.
Police procedures, red herrings, mythic woods, partner tension, physiological toll - it's all there and written far better than any genre fiction needs to be. French ratchets up the tension and you're never certain where the story is going to take you next.
This book was really long and left me feeling cheated. It is difficult to explain why without spoilers and I don´t want to do that. I was really drawn in by the initial story about the three kids that went into the woods and only one was ever found. I was intrigued by the potential for the new case to be related to the old one. I found myself wondering how anyone, especially murder detective, could be so dumb, moody, and odd. I stayed up all night to finish the book only to be annoyed with the ending.
I'm surprised that so many people I know gave this book such a high rating.
For me, the foreshadowing was so thick it left nothing to the imagination. Near the end when the narrator is wrapping things up he says “she fooled you, too.” Not true at all. I knew exactly what had happened. Maybe because I never believed Detective Ryan. He became the unreliable narrator almost immediately with his memory full of holes and his insistence on connecting two cases that had no business being connected.
In the end, the case that was solved was the one no one really cared about. What I really wanted to know was how the blood got into the shoes!
This novel takes a bit to get going, but once it does you're sucked into a really great mystery novel. The character are flawed but still very real and you find yourself caring about what's happening to them, asking yourself why they are making decisions that are obviously bad, and annoyed when you don't get the ending you've been waiting for since page one. Even better, Tana French immerses us into modern Ireland; a country that continues to ride the Celtic Tiger economy while dealing with all that implies. There are two issues I have with the novel. First, the author basically gives us two plots and gives equal time to both; however, only one of those plots ever reaches any sort of conclusion and the one we most want to see solved is left open ended. Second, while the other plot is resolved it's resolved in way that was very annoying and a major letdown. Maybe the author thought she was being different but ending the novel this way, but it didn't work. No, I don't think every novel has to conclude with everything nicely tidied up, but when I turned the last page I was just left with a feeling of disappointment. Still, it's great novel, especially for an author's first published work.
4.5 stars. I am not usually a fan of police procedurals - I'd rather a gritty psychological thriller any day - but In The Woods may have converted me. Eery and compelling, I'll most definitely be reading more of her Dublin Murder Squad series.
Solid mystery with great characters and an interesting story. Look forward to reading more of Tana French.
Fascinating and absorbing. I was left with a very sad, bittersweet feeling at the end - yet it was still satisfying because yeah, that's real life. The writing is beautiful and draws you in (an accomplishment for a first-person narrative), and the details are well-researched enough to feel real. Enough twists and turns and chillbump-raising moments for a mystery addict, though maybe not for a suspense novel. I can't wait to read the next one!
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Twenty years after the disappearance (and presumed murder) of two older children, the body of a young girl from the same neighborhood is found on the site of an archaeological dig – atop a surface that was very likely used for human sacrifice. Doesn't that sound like the hook to a gripping novel? French deals with it a little differently than most writers would – most of that is irrelevant.
The two detectives who catch this case are Rob Ryan (a friend of the two probable victims of from before) and his partner and pal, Cassie Maddox. They quickly determine the identity of the victim, see that her family situation isn't as nice as it seems, and that this case will not be quickly solved.
The chemistry between Maddox and Ryan is strong, the partnership is almost too good to believe, it's a lot of fun to see them working together. At a certain point they stop working together, and things stop going so well – leading up to that, Ryan's been making rookie mistake after rookie mistake, all of which are done without the knowledge of or against the advice of his partner. Maddox isn't quite that dependent on him, but it's clear the two are stronger as a pair.
The procedural elements of the case are detailed and exhaustive. There's probably too much of it, really. I don't mind red herrings, or detectives running down false leads, really. But there's a way to do that while serving a mystery, and there's a way to do it harming the mystery. French opted for the latter – there's an entire storyline devoted to a false lead, a couple of characters that exist merely to serve that storyline, until it's ended and one of them goes on to play a role in the conclusion. And it could've been anyone in the conclusion doing what he did – almost literally anyone would've sufficed.
Ultimately, when the mystery is solved, it was thanks to a giant blinking sign that was ignored earlier – in a mostly believable manner. The interviews that followed were a real pleasure to read.
French showed an over-reliance on vague foreshadowing. Many chapters ended on a note along the lines of, “If I'd only done this, would it have helped? Probably not, but you never know” (but written better). Some of that is okay, but French overused this, it stopped being effective and became pretty annoying and/or skippable pretty quickly.
This is the beginning of a series, but from about the halfway point on, you got the impression that this would be the only one to star Ryan and Maddox. Which is part of the reason that the series is called the Dublin Murder Squad (despite the fact that no such thing exists), I guess – so different detectives can be the focus. Which sounds great, but I guess I would've liked a greater sense of place, of group, of...something. But this was Ryan and Maddox's story, not the Squad's. Thinking of it as the Squad's story makes as much sense as thinking of the last few Harry Bosch novels as Open-Unsolved Unit's.
This mystery definitely has aspirations, it's a mystery novel that wants to be more than that. And it does a pretty good job of being more than a mystery novel, of achieving the aspirations. I just think it does so while forsaking the mystery novel. I liked it while I read it, but I kept seeing the strings attached to French's marionettes – which detracted from, but didn't eliminate the pleasure. I'm curious, but not driven, to see where French goes from here.
When I started reading the book I loved the way she described everything - pretty poetic for the genre. It kept my interest and I couldn't stop reading. About half way through it was feeling slow, I had that feeling of “I'm only half way!” 3/4 of the way through I knew “who dunnit” and the last 1/4 was very slow and when everything wrapped up it still went on. I'm trying to decide if I want to read another one of her books. I ended the book feeling a little blah. However, as I said previously, the writing was beautiful in parts and because of that I may give another book a chance.
Read my review on my blog here: https://theconsultingbookworm.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/in-the-woods-tana-french/
One of my favorite things in media (be it in movies, tv shows, video games or books) is when I get pleasantly surprised. When I go into something with a specific expectation, and get blown away by something I did not see coming. “In the Woods” did this for me.
I was in the mood for a classic murder mystery. Even if the market is flooded with them, and after seeing that this is the first book in a series called “Dublin Murder Squad” -which kinda sounded like some off the shelf shovelware stuff- I chose this.
What I really love about murder stories is the investigation progress. I find something cozy in around the clock working detectives huddled into some small room, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee out of cups while digging themselves through mountains of paperwork and photographs. Bonus points for rain that pours down the windows.
And I got all that with “In the Woods”. The writing is really visually and atmospheric, and the coziness kicked in alright. But around the middle of the book the pleasant surprises started to seep through. The plot and characters got way more complex than I expected. I couldn't stop reading. I felt like a detective myself learning all the tiny bits of the characters, and learned to love and/or hate them. All the way to the solutions I couldn't predict the outcome. And Tana French threw one or two small twists in.
I can see that some people will hate this book just because of the fact that one of the biggest mystery doesn't get solved. But I didn't mind. It really fits into the circumstances and left me with something to think about.
Although there are sequels I will probably never read them. For me this was a perfect story in itself and I would like to remember the characters as they are at the end of this book.
Started off rather slow, I took my time getting through this one. French really developed the characters well. Loved that this book differs from a lot of books and doesn't feel that need tie up all the loose ends. I will definitely be reading the rest of the series.
This book started out well, but the author got a bit bogged down and lost Cassie and Rob along the way. Some other reviewers were disappointed that the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Jaimie and Peter was wrapped up. However, I think the author did provide enough clues to figure out what happened without necessarily providing the motive, which would have been more satisfying. In all, it's an okay book that will keep your attention for several hours.