Book #93: In the Woods by Tana French

I read French's Broken Harbor a while ago, and it always stuck in my head that I loved it. I remember different creepy aspects of that mystery quite often--some of it was just so off-putting, just in the way that people are confused and insane--and I know I stayed up a good part of the night reading it because I couldn't put it down. But for some reason, it never occurred to me to check if she'd written other books--and turns out that Broken Harbor was her fourth mystery, and her others are also reviewed and rated very highly. So I've meant to get around to reading more of her forever, and finally the stars aligned and I started reading this book a few days ago and then spent all evening powering through it yesterday. I cannot think of a worse week for me to spend time reading--we also closed on our house yesterday, so we have a FEW things to do (cough, cough)--but once I started this one, I couldn't put it down and had to figure it out. Just like Broken Harbor.

This murder mystery is narrated by Robert Ryan, a murder squad detective in Dublin. He and his partner, Cassie Maddox, are assigned to a case of a murdered twelve-year-old girl--which unfortunately happened in the same exact place where Ryan himself grew up and suffered a traumatizing experience as a twelve-year-old. When he was twelve, he and his two best friends were playing in the wood near their house, and they disappeared. When Ryan was found, his shoes were filled with blood and he couldn't remember anything--and his two friends were never found. He feels sure that the two mysteries are linked, and that his participation in solving this one will help him to remember and figure out what happened to him and his two friends. The book is really about Ryan's involvement in solving the mystery and how it's affecting him, how he begins to remember things but can't force his mind to take the leap to what really happened that day. It's also about Ryan's relationship with Cassie Maddox, his best friend and partner on the squad, and how their relationship changes over the course of this mystery. They eventually figure out who murdered the little girl who was found, and they uncover a lot of other stuff in the process.

Cassie is the narrator of the second Dublin Murder Squad novels, which is set after this one ends, and I'm actually really excited to read that one. I will check it out after I've worked my way through the enormous stack of books that I have already checked out from the libraries, and after we've finally moved and settled in and I've finished grading all my students' stuff. (Things are a LITTLE hectic this week--again, why I shouldn't have spent the evening reading last night! Ahh! But I couldn't help it!)