The Keeper

 

I should start by saying I've not been attracted to Tana French's writing for many years. I have reviewed six of her books, but none lately. My reaction to her is suprising to me since she has been revered by so many readers, and she obviously has a huge following. I got this book in audioformat and I tried to listen to it twice, about two weeks apart, and I simply could not concentrate on the material. When my mind wonders to the grocery list or some item on my to-do list, it's not a good sign for the book. I did not get far in the book, probably less than 30 pages. I found the audiobook's reader to be too melodramatic, so maybe it was the reader, maybe it was the material - I suspect it was a little of both. I can't give this successful author a good review or recommendation for purchase of this novel. I decided the book would not get a third try, so I'm returning it unfinished to Libby.

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The Keeper

 This is not actually a review of the content of Tana French’s new book The Keeper.  I did not realize just how important the voice is in an audiobook, but I quickly realized it with this one. I only got about 2% into the book when I simply could not stand to listen to the narrator. The voice was too slow, too dramatic and hysterical, so I gave up. Although I liked and gave positive reviews of a couple of her early books, and although I did review six of her books, I’ve not been a great fan of her writing and haven’t read her work since 2018. Anyhow, perhaps this book would have turned the tables for me since she is obviously a very successful writer. But, the narrator soured my mood. I even tried to listen to it a day later – just could not do it. Now, duh, I've developed a new appreciation for most of the great narrators that have brought me so much pleasure. I didn't realize that I was taking them for granted. No more! Maybe you won't be turned off to this reader the way that I was.

But this book if you have to.

The Hunter

 I downloaded this book so my wife and I could listen to it during a long car trip. However, I was disappointed in the content - neither plot nor characters were interesting. This is the second French book in a row which left me uninspired. My wife, a very literate and voracious reader was in total agreement with me, and we abandoned the book about halfway through.

The Trespasser

This is the sixth Tana French book reviewed in the blog, so you we’ve liked her enough to keep reading her work. However, the sixth book, The Trespasser, simply did not hold my interest despite an effort to do so. I got to the 48% mark before I abandoned the effort. My wife quit reading this one long before that. I could not identify with Detective Garda Antoinette Conway or the other characters that were used to fill out the action, and the action dragged along to the point I simply didn’t care to stay engaged. I don’t need to fill you in on the plot (or non-plot) since this book does not get my recommendation.

Broken Harbor

I’ve now read all five of Tana French’s novels, and Broken Harbor is the fourth one she wrote. I’ve favorably reviewed the others, and raved about two of them (see the blog), but this effort did not live up to the others. It does not get my recommendation as a good and entertaining crime novel.

Mick Scorcher Kennedy was a senior detective on the Murder Squad who had the highest solve rate of anyone in the department. But, he had just had come back to the Murder Squad after some time away, and the grisly murders of three of four family members in Broken Harbor was his first new case. He accepted as his partner Richie Curran who, after years of being a policeman, had just been promoted to the Murder Squad. This was his first case. Much of the action had to do with reconstructing the crime scene and trying to understand what happened. Only the mother survived the knife wounds of the assailant, and her survival was in question for the first half of the book. Curran and Kennedy seemed to work as a good team who had an intuitive feel for one another, a quick partnership that allowed for arguing about the details and possibilities, something that usually does not come so quickly to detective partners. Kennedy was well supported by his boss, but he had an antagonist, an inadequate and jealous detective whose presence made Kennedy’s work so much harder.

French took us to the details of the lives of everyone involved, including Kennedy. It was important that his mother had committed suicide at the same seaside village where the new murders took place. But, there were too many details, especially with the notion that there was a wild animal in the attic in the home where the murders took place. The details interfered with the flow of the story. Had I not been a very big fan of French from her prior novels, I would not have stayed with this book to the end.

The Likeness

This is my fourth Tana French novel, The Likenss, and it is both totally implausible and totally gripping. The murder victim is Detective Cassie Maddox’s doppelganger, so under the name of Lexie Madison, Cassie infiltrates a unique group of college students at the very college where she previously did undercover work. But Lexie Madison was the fake identity Cassie and her boss had created for the prior undercover job, and sometime after that old operation ended and Cassie left the school, it was the identity that the murdered woman had chosen to steal. Do you follow that? With a bit of reality suspension by the reader, it works. Tana French’s writing and character development is wonderful although this one is not quite up to the quality of In The Woods or Faithful Place. I’m a fan, and I’ve already acquired Broken Harbor and will read that one soon.

In the Woods by Tana French

After having already read and very favorably reviewed two of Tana French’s later books, I decided to read her first novel which won her awards (including the Edgar) and launched her career. In The Woods is an excellent story with three main plot lines. The first plot has to do with the current day murder of 12-year-old Katy Devlin, a gifted ballet student who was about to leave home in Knocknaree, Ireland, a few miles outside of Dublin, to join the Royal Ballet School. The second had to do with an old murder, one that happened 22 years earlier. Detective Rob Ryan was the victim of a crime when he was 12 years old which happened at precisely the same location as Katy’s murder. He was playing with his two best friends in the woods near their home when his two friends ended up missing. No trace of them was ever found and he was found frozen against a tree, in a catatonic state, with no memory of what had happened. It was a famous case in Ireland which went unsolved. Rob was sent away to boarding school, his parents moved away from Knocknaree, and he began using his middle name instead of his first name by which he had previously been known. He eventually sought a career in the police force and was a detective when he and his partner drew the case of Katy Devlin. The third plot had to do with Ryan’s relationship with his partner, Cassie Maddox, a platonic relationship. They were great friends, spent all their time together, were very successful as a detective team, and no one could understand how a sexual intimacy had never developed between them.

From the outset of the book, it was clear that the second and third plots had to reach some kind of resolution because of the tension they created. Rob had no memories before the age of 12, but suddenly he was spending a lot of time right back where his trauma and loss had occurred. Some memory of the tragedy had to come back to him, didn’t it? The old and new cases were possibly connected, so that seemed to mean he had to remember something. As an interested party, he should not have been involved as a detective in the new case, but his real identity was only known to Cassie. And, as his own emotional turmoil evolved as he investigated this new murder, so did his relationship with Cassie. The only question was how French was going to play out those plot lines and how she would keep the tension in them alive.

Meanwhile, the first them, the murder of Katy was carefully developed, and multiple subplots supported all three themes. French’s character development was skillful and she has a good understanding of psychopaths, which became an important theme, as well. This book took off from the opening lines of the prologue which provided the most beautiful descriptive prose that you’ll read anywhere. It is a cliché, but this story was spellbinding. I’m going to have to make room for French in my power rotation of authors. If murder mysteries are your genre, then this well-conceived and well-written book is for you. It certainly deserved all of the awards it received.


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The Secret Place by Tana French

The Secret Place is Tana French’s 5^th novel, and she has already won multiple awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards. I previously reviewed her third novel, but that was nearly four years ago and it is my loss that I did not find my way back to her work sooner.

This story is a murder mystery which takes place on the grounds of a girls’ boarding school, Kilda, in Dublin, Ireland. What is special about this is the dialogue amongst the girls which emphasizes their cliques and their incredibly cruelty towards and dependence on one another. French’s dialogue carries the story. She poses four girls in one clique against four in another, one clique being stereotypical teen girls who are openly boy crazy and shallowly intrigued by the latest fashions. The second clique is a group who is trying to be everything the other is not. But the murder victim is a boy from the neighboring boys’ boarding school who had his designs on girls from both cliques, giving them plenty to fight about, to hate each other for.

French bounces back and forth between the development of the girls’ relationship with one another which leads to the murder of Chris Harper, and the investigation of the murder. The girls’ story extends over a couple years while the investigation, really the second investigation since the first one ended with no arrest, takes only a day. The juxtaposition of those stories serves the main plot perfectly. There is a rich interplay between the lead investigator Antoinette Conway and Detective Stephen Moran. Both Conway and Moran have something to prove to their own department and, for different reasons, both are seen as untrustworthy and damaged goods.

This novel is well written, and French kept me guessing until the end, an end that was totally satisfying. This book gets my strong recommendation, and I’ve already purchased French’s first novel, In the Woods.

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