The Secret Place
Ratings81
Average rating3.8
This murder mystery set in a upper class girl's school in Dublin has a poignant portrayal of friendship and solidarity among a group of four girls as they navigate high school and teenage social pressures together. Although they are at an all girls' school, the corresponding all boys' high school is right next door and they interact with the boys regularly. When one of the students from the boys school turns up dead on the grounds of the girls' school and the police fail to find the murderer, it leaves everyone at the school uneasy. This story starts when one of the girls brings a postcard that announces "I know who killed Chris Harper," which she found posted in her school, to an ambitious detective in the Cold Case division of the police. The framing of the story is that this Cold Case detective brings the postcard to the detective in the Murder division who was in charge of the case when it first was investigated and the two of them revive the investigation.
The investigation aspect of the story was the least compelling to me. I really wasn't interested in the dynamics between the two detectives, and I found it hard to swallow the idea that the entire investigation portrayed in the book took place over the course of one long day. But I truly enjoyed the part of the book that focused on the friendship between the girls, and the hostilities with a rival group headed by their archnemesis Joanne. If Tana French had left the cops out of it and let the girls figure it all out amongst themselves, The Secret Place might have been really interesting. As it was, it was a pretty good mystery.
Quits strange this one. My rating reflects my enjoyment compared to the previous Dublin Murder Squad books. This one, unfortunately, just isn't as good as the previous four.
I think the main sticking point for me was the bits with the school girls just felt a bit odd. Think of that middle ground between Catherine Tate's Lauren and the girls from Picnic at Hanging Rock. I just found it a really strange drawn out read. Way too long for what it was. Those last 100 pages were a real battle, but I guess I won out in the end.
The Secret Place- It's been a while since I spent time with The Dublin Murder Squad. I returned with this title mainly b/c it was St. Patrick's Day and I wanted to hear an audiobook with authentic Irish accents. I was not disappointed as the story telling used two diffent voices and thus a male and female narrator. The male was first person and amazing! The vocalization opened the character up so much. A great plot about friendship, loyality and trust. The plot moved slowly in places as there was much space and time to develop how the characters interacted and the lush setting. A most satisfying ending - even if one not insignificant aspect of the story wasn't resolved.
My first foray into the crime fiction genre, and i enjoyed it enough to finish it, but I don't think I'll stick around for more. Even though French is really good at writing characters - here I've definitely enjoyed the detective's perspective a lot more than the kids' - the who-dunnit mystery isn't really my thing. Also, I nearly stopped reading/listening when a sudden supernatural element entered the plot. But, as other reviewers noted, it's a side plot, that's not necessarily too relevant for the plot. So, all in all, it was a decent entertaining listen.
Full review appears on The Bent Bookworm!I don't usually get all the feels when reading a murder mystery. For me mysteries are generally all about the who/what/where/when/why and how the detective figure puts all that together into a solution. But Tana French's 5th Dublin Murder Squad book, [b:The Secret Place 20821043 The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5) Tana French https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1396671263s/20821043.jpg 21598636], gave me the feels.Somehow, she manages to intrigue me in every single book, even though the POV character changes each time. Unlike most mystery series (at least in my experience), while there are familiar characters in each one, usually we just see a very brief appearance of the people from the last book in the current one. After there first book, the subsequent book's main character has also been seen briefly in the previous one. I love this foreshadowing, even if I was completely and totally distraught when I started the second book and realized we weren't going to see Rob again. Still not over it. Still begging to know what happens to him. Ms. French, are you listening?I love beautiful; always have. I never saw why I should hate what I wish I had. Love it harder. Work your way closer. Clasp your hands around it tighter. Till you find a way to make it yours. The Secret Place delves into the world of priviledged upper class high school girls, a very slender sliver of the population and as full of vitriol and poison as Henry VIII's court ever was. I was skeptical going in...how accurate could it be? I was really afraid that it might end up one of those books that sounds like the author is trying desperately to be young again and only succeeds in dating herself by her generation's slang. But no. Without compromising her usually sparkling prose in the slightest, Ms. French absorbs us into this cut-a-bitch world. God, I'm so glad I didn't go to this kind of school. Scary AF. Remember little Holly Mackey, from [b:Faithful Place 7093952 Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3) Tana French https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1291165900s/7093952.jpg 7350661]? Well, she's back and almost-all-grown-up. Still just as smart and sassy, with a slight tinge of...Holly's holding her own in this den of lions, along with a very tight group of her friends. They're having some growing pains, but they're mostly of the first-world variety. Despite that, they're actually quite compelling. Much more than I was expecting. I hope Holly appears again. Maybe she'll eventually join the murder squad herself? Oooo. Now there's a thought. But I'm getting sidetracked.My body my mind the way I dress the way I walk...mine all mine.This book was a lot about the politics and emotions of being a teenager. Yes, teenagers have what I would term politics. In what was a bit of a departure from the previous books (for me) – I guessed the murderer somewhere between page 62 and 101. I kept expecting some huge plot twist and I did doubt myself A LOT, but still. Also, Detective Moran was probably the most...unoriginal narrator she's had yet. That was helped by the alternating viewpoints – yes, Moran was in the 1st person, but that alternated with chapters in 3rd person from the girls' POV. Moran is likable but just kind of...there. Now Antoinette Conway, the female detective Moran thrown in with for this case? There's a bitch I'd like to have at my back, and I mean that in the best possible way. I am SO EXCITED that she's coming back for [b:The Trespasser 28273664 The Trespasser (Dublin Murder Squad, #6) Tana French https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1469805929s/28273664.jpg 48321130]!Also, this is the first time French has had anything but the strictly statistically or scientifically provable events/actions in her books. Trying not to spoil here, but I was really nonplussed by a particular set of occurrences that is never fully explained. I guess that really does happen in real life sometimes, but I have a really hard time extending my reality this far. She actually addressed this in a Q&A on GoodReads ( link but DEFINITE SPOILERS here!!), and that made me feel a little better but I still think it should have been clarified better in the book itself.They can't tell you what it's going to be like...in the reek of ragwort and the milk of broken dandelion stems.Yes, I'm glad I didn't go to this kind of school. Pretty sure the sensitive, insecure girl I was in high school would have been flayed alive. At the same time, I'm really sad I didn't have the kind of experiences Holly and her friends have – and the friends. Despite all their issues...these girls will remember each other, always. 20 years down the road, just thinking of the others will bring back not only memories of things seen but things touched, things tasted, heartache and hope.4/5 stars.I always find mysteries hard to review without giving spoilers. Also I was a BAD BOOK REVIEWER and returned the library book BEFORE COPYING THE QUOTES I WANTED. Ack!!! Hence the short quotes/lack of quotes.
Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.
I've always just assumed that I don't like crime novels, apart from the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith I haven't found any crime books I've liked. But I think the problem is I've been reading bad crime books. Because I really enjoyed this. It was less CSI-ey and more people talking to people trying to work out what happened. It was more a book about problem solving and I really liked that.
The only thing I noticed (and this may just be me and not a problem with the editing) was towards the beginning of the book someone mentions the fact that the girls in this school are not allowed to have phones with them. However the girls having phones is a large part of this mystery. In fact the girls having phones is an extremely important part of this novel. I can't tell if I misread something or if this was a plot bunny that the editors missed.
The only other tiny thing that annoyed me was with all the references to Facebook and WTF amazeballs not to mention Voldemort this felt like a very modern book, so the fact that these girls were using flip phones felt very out of place. I realise I'm getting picky here but it's been at least 10 years since I saw someone use a flip phone. However apart from those little problems I really enjoyed this book. In fact I enjoyed it so much I think I'm going to read Tana French's other books.
I almost gave up on this book when I realized that there was magic. It seemed like cheating – I loved [b:Broken Harbor 13123877 Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, #4) Tana French https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330675374s/13123877.jpg 15718578] for its grittiness and realness and I was worried that would be lost in The Secret Place. But it turned out that for me, the key to really getting Tana French books was embracing the magical realism here. The mental gymnastics I had to do to reach a place where magical realism was okay for me in her books led me to realize that there's a flavor of magical realism in all her books. Not literally, of course, but her books are to traditional murder mysteries the way that magical realism is to traditional fantasy: they aren't about murder, they use crimes as a lens to reflect upon the traits in real life that are difficult to explore in pure “literary” fiction.And in that context, French is a genius. The Secret Place uses its central mystery to explore the tight friendships of teenage years, and how empowering and close they can be. The four main characters are depicted perfectly, achingly nuanced – almost like someone that I've known and drifted away from myself. The overall effect was one of extreme, almost overwhelming nostalgia, so much so that the
Another Goodreads reader indicated that this is the first of French's novels that didn't surpass the one before it in her estimation of its qualities. I'll differ with her a bit. Broken Harbour, with its odd pine martin creature story, never hooked me the way this did. Each of French's novels plays out tensions between the story line of the murder (who did it; how will we learn the facts?) and the story line of the Dublin murder squad detectives. Along the way, she weaves in juuuuust enough weird to make you sit up and take notice. I was a bit worried, at about the 1/3-through mark, that she'd lost me and we were back in weasel land, but her depiction of the all-girls' school and its pupils and the power–quite literally–of their friendships was just remarkable. She writes a good tale, that Tana French. Well done.
I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway and after binge reading it in a day, I have some pretty mixed feelings. I've never read any Tana French before, but I'm probably going to read her other books. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and spoiler the rest of my review; I can't be trusted not to reveal any details.
Spoiler
Firstly, I guessed the killer within the first 200 pages, go me! Yet a huge part of me wishes I hadn't, I wished she'd gone a different way with the book and thrown a big twist at the end. I was expecting a twist of some sort, but instead the ending just felt anti-climatic.
The length and suspense of the book frustrated me as well; the story is set over the space of a day (albeit a very long day) and each conversation is meticulously recorded (as we see the day through the eyes of Detective Moran, interspersed with flashbacks of the girls). My English teacher would have said that this long, drawn out prose was a metaphor for how drawn out the investigation had been, the suspense that the detectives felt, but all it made me was tired. I found myself skimming the last couple hundred pages as I just wanted to get to the end and find out if my theories were right. Suspense is great, but not when there's 500 pages plus of it (alternatively, it's very likely I'm just incredibly impatient and have a small attention span and a penchant for short(ish) books).
I wasn't keen on the paranormal aspect of the book either; generally my feelings are that paranormal fiction should be kept far away from crime fiction. With all the ghosts and the magic, I was genuinely fearful at one point that Chris' killer would wind up being a ghost too. Paranormal activity detracts away from the reality of the book and makes it less scary, and whilst the ghost sightings were probably just teenage hysteria, the thing with the lights isn't so easy to explain. I'd like to presume the ‘magic' was merely teenage imagination and the strength of sisterhood - I hope this is this case - but I doubt this was what was intended.
However, bad bits aside, this book was incredibly enjoyable! The relationship between Detectives Moran and Conway was perfect and the way their characters and their relationship progressed was beautiful to watch. Both characters were deeply flawed, dissimilar and yet so alike and through the day and the book we get to see them bond.
Tana French captures all the angst and the drama of being a teenager brilliantly, 3.5 out of 5 stars. Now I'm off to read everything else she's written.