From back cover: In Tana French's powerful debut thriller, three children leave their small Dublin neighborhood to play in the surrounding woods. Hours later, their mothers' calls go unanswered. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, Detective Rob Ryan -- the found boy, who has kept his past a secret -- and his partner Cassie Maddox investigate the murder of a twelve-year-old girl in the same woods. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him, and that of his own shadowy past.

My thoughts: I have no idea how to fairly review this without spoilers. I usually try not to include them because I know I like to use other people's reviews to decide if I want to read the book, but I've been pondering how to be vague and talk about what I did and didn't like without giving anything away, and I can't figure out a good way. So, be warned, SPOILERS AHEAD.

Right. So that's out of the way.

First off, I don't really know what drew me to this book in the first place. I mean, I'm sure the title and cover made me pick it up and read the synopsis, but why I bought it and read it, I don't really know. It wasn't recommended to me, I don't hold a lot of stock in "New York Times bestseller" or "winner of the XYZ award" things on the cover, and mystery/thriller really isn't my usual genre. The synopsis really is somewhat standard for a M/T book. Perhaps it was the phrase "psychological suspense" that got me? I love *psychological* thrillers, though usually in movie rather than book format, so that's the only thing I can think that would have drawn me in. Either way, I started it and plowed ahead. It's quite long at 429 pages in the trade paperback format, but the writing is very well done and, though I do think a few things could have been edited out, I didn't mind the length too much.

I loved the relationship between Ryan and Cassie, right up until it got ruined by their tumble in the sheets and then I was crushingly disappointed. It's not that I didn't believe it -- I totally did, all the way. I bought their close, entirely platonic friendship hook, line and sinker. And I thought the crashing and burning of it, as it was, is pretty much exactly how it would go in reality. French does a great job of making sure we don't really know how Cassie feels and we clearly see how conflicted and confused Ryan is. So while I believed it, I was still disappointed. It was so refreshing to read about a partnership and friendship with no sexual overtones; I really, really wanted that to carry through the whole book.

I was unsurprised to learn who the "mastermind" behind the Katy's killing was. I don't usually try to figure out who did it; even so, this one felt pretty obvious to me. The twists and turns and false leads are well written, but, in the end, I pretty much shrugged and said, "well, of course it was her". There are plenty of giveaways, the most specific being Cassie talking about her experience with a psychopath while in college. Obviously there was a reason this came up and was described in such detail. And what other character fit the bill besides Rosalind? Again - well written. Rosalind is a convincing psychopath, Ryan is the perfect sucker, and Cassie is the brilliant manipulator. Believable, yes. Shocking? No.

I like the archaeological setting, though I find it quite hard to believe that a motorway would not be moved to accommodate such a finding. Maybe I'm naive.

My biggest gripe is the whole previous mystery of Ryan's missing friends. I don't care that we don't get any answers, though I read a lot of reviews by people who were very upset to not get resolution. I never thought the murder and disappearances were connected. I just don't get the inclusion of it all. Why have such specific details -- the blood-filled shoes being the biggest example -- if you're not going to do anything with it? And what's with the vague hints that oh, maybe, it could be.... *gasp* MONSTERS? I hate it when authors do that: toss in some random monster/alien/paranormal thing in a book that is doing just fine in reality, thank you very much. It didn't make me more curious or add anything to the mystery, it just irritated me. A great big, "oh, for fuck's sake" from me. I don't really understand what it added to the main story. I suppose it is one of the big things that make it different from the dime-a-dozen murder mystery, but I didn't get it.

Finally, how did Rosalind know who Ryan was? He didn't tell her and I don't buy that she figured it out from simply knowing two friends of his disappeared when he was young. French makes a big point of his English accent, that people never believe he's from Ireland, etc. Why would Rosalind, a seventeen-year-old who wasn't even alive during Ryan's friends' disappearance, figure out something that no one else did? Nope. Don't buy it. I don't care how psychotic and manipulative she is, it doesn't mean she's a mind-reader.

I realize this review sounds like I hated the book. I didn't. I finished it, for one, and spent hours reading huge chunks of it at times. French is talented -- there are some simply beautiful pieces of prose in here -- and her characters are incredibly well developed. She kept me interested for 400+ pages, despite regularly tossing in things I didn't like or didn't believe.

In short: a good book for those who like the genre. I see that it is the first in a series ("Dublin Murder Squad"), though I don't see myself reading any of the others. Maybe if she strays out of the mystery/thriller genre, I'll give her another go.

Mystery/thriller is much more my mother's genre, so I'll be sending this her way. Off to Memphis, little book!