In the Woods by Tana French
In the Woods
By: Tana French
0143113496
Published by: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Genre: Pages: 464
Author’s Website:
http://tanafrench.com/
Author’s Twitter:
Synopsis {from the author’s site}
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled shoes, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox – his partner and closest friend – find themselves investigating a case with chilling links to that long-ago disappearance. Now, with only snippets of buried memories to guide him, Rob has the chance to unravel both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.
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My Thoughts:
I am such a dork. The author is from Ireland, so a few sayings like “coming in for tea” threw me for a bit. I kept thinking, “why are they making these kids drink all this tea?!” It finally dawned on me that “having tea” meant dinner. LOL!!! Ok on to the real review.
This book took a while for me to get into. (my reading updates) I thought at first that the language was a little “hard”, it took me a few pages to get used to the writing style. Once I got past the writing style, it was pretty good. The story is, just as the synopsis says, about a boy who goes through a “very bad thing” and then grows up to be a cop. The cop then lands a murder investigation that they are sure is tied into the very bad thing that happened to him as a youth.
I loved the characters. Cassie I pictured in my mind to look like Hayley from Paramore, and “Rob” I totally saw as the guy from that FX show LIGHTS OUT. I loved the relationship between them, and the way it was illustrated throughout the story.
The story itself at several points had the hairs standing up on my arms. Its one of those stories that totally creeps you out without really telling you ANYTHING. Sorry, I can’t really go into great detail without spoiling the entire book for you! haha.
I will spoil this much for you though. Kind of a word of warning.
<—SPOILER—>
I was SO mad when this book ended. I spent an entire MONTH reading this book. A book that contained TWO mysteries: what happened back then & what happened now. An entire month, to get to the end and only have the answer to ONE of the mysteries! Yep, one of them does not get resolved! I actually flipped back through the book to see if I’d accidently missed a chapter. That’s how much I LIKED this book. I feel like I got robbed! I really liked the book and NEED to know what happened! So, here is what I propose. I say, lets all write the author a letter. We’ll just explain that she owes us a full ending and if she cares about us, half as much as we care about her characters, then she will write a sequel and totally clear all this up for us! Who’s with me?! lol!!!
<—END SPOILER—>
Recommended for people who like: mystery, thriller, crime