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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I love Tana French, I love the Dublin Murder Squad, and I loved this book more than any of the others that came before. I wish Tana published a new one every month.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
My least favourite of the series - but still very good and absorbing.
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Accidentally read this first in the series but it doesn’t matter and it was so good!!
Awww read like a good cop show. Jaded heroine, personable partner... I want more of their stories!
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.
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.
I really wanted to like this one. I usually love police procedure books, but this one just wasn’t it.