In the Woods with Tana French's "Dublin Murder Squad" Mysteries

[The following review was written for the Enoch Pratt Free Library's PrattChat blog.]

There are two types of people in the world: those with an obsessive devotion to French’s books — and those who haven’t read them yet." - Anne Donahue (IndieWire, Nov 10, 2019)

Life under quarantine has given me the luxury of having the time to reread In the Woods, the first book in the bestselling and award-winning “Dublin Murder Squad” series, by my favorite contemporary mystery writer, Tana French. Though her latest book, 2019’s The Witch Elm, was an unrelated standalone novel, it is the six titles in the Dublin police series written between 2007 and 2016 that led to French’s critical acclaim and now to Dublin Murders, an eight-part Starz network television adaptation of the first two novels in the series, In the Woods (2007, winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Barry and Macavity award for Best First Novel) and The Likeness (2008). Starz is a commercial streaming platform (though you can sign up for a free seven-day trial subscription), so if you don’t want to pay to play, I recommend using your library card to check out the free eBook or eAudio versions of these titles.

Though French has gained renown as a crime writer, critic Laura Millar argues that her work shatters the distinction between “genre” and “literary” fiction — “the notion that although crime novels might be better plotted and more readable, only literary fiction, supposedly blessed with superior writing, characterizations and intellectual firepower, deserves the respect of serious readers.” Tana French herself also rejects the distinction, saying “I’ve never seen why audiences should be expected to be satisfied with either gripping plots or good writing. Why shouldn’t they be offered both at once?”

French certainly offers more than mere whodunnits, and that’s why her fans are so devoted and, like me, are eagerly awaiting her newest book, The Searchers (set to be released in fall of 2020.) She presents her readers with a portrait of deeply detailed characters living in a contemporary Ireland that finds itself in the aftermath of an economic boom, one where, as Laura Millar observes, they are torn between “the desire to cling to history and the urge to jettison it for brighter horizons.” Thus, in her debut, the story is set on the edge of a historically-important archeological site soon to be paved over for a crass motorway, leading to tensions between the Knocknaree townies and outside interlopers.

Given her skill in depicting the intricacies of contemporary Irish society, you would assume French is a native of the Emerald Isle, but in truth she was born in Burlington, Vermont. She crossed the pond to attend school at Trinity College Dublin 30 years ago and has lived there ever since, soaking up the post-boom property bubble downturn that increased the gap between the rich and the poor, the mighty and the downtrodden. Her keen observations on the Irish state are always there, quietly coloring the police procedural narrative that anchors her stories.

And while on its surface In the Woods is about two homicide detectives, Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, trying to solve the murder of a young girl, the search for the killer not only becomes a journey of self-discovery for Rob (with its possible connection to a traumatic incident in his secret past), it also comes to affect the close-knit relationship he has with Cassie - one that questions whether a man and a woman can truly be friends without romantic entanglements spoiling the harmony or trust being betrayed.

The relationship between these two, is what separates In the Woods from ordinary crime novels and adds another dimension. Like Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles, Rob and Cassie have a mental “alchemy,” a bond that finds them sharing a common “currency” of language or, as Rob puts it, “...we planted seeds without thinking, and woke up to our own private beanstalk.” He adds, “If it hadn’t been for Cassie, I think I might have ended up turning into that detective on Law and Order who has ulcers and thinks everything is a government conspiracy.” Their friendship, and its surprising denouement, will have you turning page after page, as eager to learn where it leads as, well, whodunnit.

In the Woods also features one of the best introductions to a mystery since Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1939), as the narrator sets the story’s template (and anticipates its outcome) with these frank words:

“What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely, spending hours and days stupor-deep in lies, and then we turn back to her holding out the lover’s ultimate Moebius strip: But I only did it because I love you...What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this - two things: I crave truth. And I lie.”

That narrator is Rob Ryan and it’s this insight that will inform his attempt to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and the long-buried memories of his own shadowy past. For, far from being silent, the woods around his childhood home of Knocknaree speak volumes to him.

Every Dublin Murder Squad book follows a “passing the baton” model in which a secondary detective in one novel goes on to becomes the primary focus in the next. So while you yearn to continue following one protagonist, the author yearns to move on and create interest in a new one. Thus, while In the Woods is mainly about Rob, 2008’s The Likeness features Cassie, who teams up with undercover operations boss Frank Mackey. Then Cassie disappears and Mackey becomes the focus of 2010’s Faithful Place; that novel introduces detective Scorcher Kennedy, who becomes the protagonist of 2012’s Broken Harbor, working with squad rookie Stephen Moran. Moran then gets his moment in the spotlight working with abrasive detective Antoinette Conway in 2014’s The Secret Place; then Antoinette takes over in the final Dublin Murder novel, 2016’s The Trepasser.

Tana French’s main characters may come and go, but you’ll want to meet each new one she introduces. Still, the initial alchemy of Rob and Cassie in her debut is so winning that it’s worth revisiting time and again. You may even be tempted, like me, to break down and watch Starz’s Dublin Murders series to spend even more time with them.

All of Tana French’s books are available for download as digital eBooks or eAudio.