The Secret Place

 

The Secret Place by Tana French
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

French deviated quite a bit in this entry to the Dublin Murder Squad and while it was a fine detective novel, I felt frustrated that it didn't play by the rules. First of all we go back to two novels to Frank's world instead of the immediately preceding book. If we're going to jump back that far, might as well go back to Rob and Cassie, since they are who we all like anyway. Next, instead of staying inside our protagonist's head we alternate chapters with an omniscient narrator that covers a group of roommates/best friends. The chapters also alternate between present time and when the murder happened a year ago. It makes for an interesting read, but it varies vastly from the other installments. And then finally, the magic that has hovered in and through the other novels from a vague sort of beast in the first book and shows up as watchful shadows and invisible beasts in other installments but which plays a nebulous existence in the narrator's (or victim's) heads, shows up full-fledged in this one, unambiguous and disconcertingly real. Which, again, is ok, but doesn't play by the rules French laid down in her earlier novels. Such deviations were distracting, but the story, another focusing on the power of the magic of youthful friendships and the threat of its destruction by growing up and changing having a devastating result, does stay on French's overarching theme and is told in a relatable and heartbreaking way.

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Their faces on the way home afterwards look older and strained, smeared with the scraps of leftover expressions that were pressed on too hard and won't lift away.