I’m going to review Tana French’s Faithful Place and if you think I’m being effusive, keep in mind I loved her second book The Likeness so much it hurt. Faithful Place is the third in what has been called the Dublin Murder Squad series.

In the Woods was a first novel. It had great writing, great characters, and a pretty solid mystery. But it also lacked solid resolution at the end, and left us feeling not just unsatisfied, but unsettled. I liked that it was character driven and it involved a mystery tied to the protagonist, which allowed us to feel super invested.

The Likeness, similarly, was tied to the protagonist, someone who had a peripheral but not unimportant part in the first book. It was character-driven, had a compelling mystery, and had much better resolution. It’s weakness was that it required a pretty hefty suspension of disbelief, but once you got past that, you felt sucked into the Secret History feel of the piece, the community and the secrets and the lies. Much better than her first.

Faithful Place is about Frank Mackey, who played a supporting role in The Likeness. There’s a murder, of course, and he is drawn back into the muddy waters of his family, who live in poverty in the tenements. This is French’s best work, undoubtedly. The complexity of the emotions that surround each of us with respect to our families is mind-boggling, but French navigates an abusive, dysfunctional family unit with wit and a eye for the heart of the matter. We see how Frank’s youth shaped him one way and how so easily it could have shaped him another. I will not say that the killer surprised me in the end, but I was completely gripped by how everything worked out.

I’m trying quite hard not to spoil anything for anyone, but I will say this. I read feverishly right down to the last page, but I feel satisfied with the conclusion. Life does not tie things up in soft little bows, but I feel like I have an idea how Frank’s life will play out, and I feel good about it. If you like character driven mysteries, and are not thrown off by random Irish vocab you’ve never heard, this is a good read.

I hope French is already working on the next book. I’m voting yes to seeing more of Stephen Moran.

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