And, with a nod to Tartt’s The Little Friend, which is also about an unsolved child murder, but set in America’s Deep South, French asks more than she answers and isn’t afraid of taking a risk with an ambiguous ending. In the Woods’ beginning is just as nuanced. The multi-layered plot starts in 1984 when three 12-year-olds go missing in a wood outside Dublin; only one is found alive – the other two vanish. Fast-forward 20 years and the same wood is the site of a massive archaeological dig – it’s about to be turned into a motorway, even though locals, archaeologists and concerned citizens alike are outraged that a natural enclave which has held spiritual, political and botanical significance since the Bronze Age is being paved over. In the last days of the archaeologists’ dig, a 12-year-old girl’s body turns up on a Druidic sacrificial altar and Detective Rob Ryan, the child who returned, now grown up, jumps on the case in order to lay his ghosts to rest, without revealing his personal connection to the first disappearances to his superiors. In the end though, Ryan’s single-mindedness in investigating both cases turns out to be no match for the primeval pull the wood has over him. This book has elicited extreme reactions for its ending, and I’m no exception to that – I loved its elliptical twists, unexpected turns and lack of facile explanations.– Claire Coughlan
Monday, July 30, 2007
Nobody Move, This Is A Review: In the Woods by Tana French
This is the kind of debut novel that would turn the average would-be scribe as green as the lush countryside it describes – Tana French writes like a sparkier, Irish Donna Tartt. 
And, with a nod to Tartt’s The Little Friend, which is also about an unsolved child murder, but set in America’s Deep South, French asks more than she answers and isn’t afraid of taking a risk with an ambiguous ending. In the Woods’ beginning is just as nuanced. The multi-layered plot starts in 1984 when three 12-year-olds go missing in a wood outside Dublin; only one is found alive – the other two vanish. Fast-forward 20 years and the same wood is the site of a massive archaeological dig – it’s about to be turned into a motorway, even though locals, archaeologists and concerned citizens alike are outraged that a natural enclave which has held spiritual, political and botanical significance since the Bronze Age is being paved over. In the last days of the archaeologists’ dig, a 12-year-old girl’s body turns up on a Druidic sacrificial altar and Detective Rob Ryan, the child who returned, now grown up, jumps on the case in order to lay his ghosts to rest, without revealing his personal connection to the first disappearances to his superiors. In the end though, Ryan’s single-mindedness in investigating both cases turns out to be no match for the primeval pull the wood has over him. This book has elicited extreme reactions for its ending, and I’m no exception to that – I loved its elliptical twists, unexpected turns and lack of facile explanations.– Claire Coughlan
And, with a nod to Tartt’s The Little Friend, which is also about an unsolved child murder, but set in America’s Deep South, French asks more than she answers and isn’t afraid of taking a risk with an ambiguous ending. In the Woods’ beginning is just as nuanced. The multi-layered plot starts in 1984 when three 12-year-olds go missing in a wood outside Dublin; only one is found alive – the other two vanish. Fast-forward 20 years and the same wood is the site of a massive archaeological dig – it’s about to be turned into a motorway, even though locals, archaeologists and concerned citizens alike are outraged that a natural enclave which has held spiritual, political and botanical significance since the Bronze Age is being paved over. In the last days of the archaeologists’ dig, a 12-year-old girl’s body turns up on a Druidic sacrificial altar and Detective Rob Ryan, the child who returned, now grown up, jumps on the case in order to lay his ghosts to rest, without revealing his personal connection to the first disappearances to his superiors. In the end though, Ryan’s single-mindedness in investigating both cases turns out to be no match for the primeval pull the wood has over him. This book has elicited extreme reactions for its ending, and I’m no exception to that – I loved its elliptical twists, unexpected turns and lack of facile explanations.– Claire Coughlan
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Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.
Without having read this book, I'd say it sounds a bit like Anne Cassidy's Looking For JJ. That scared me so much, I wasn't sure I could finish it.
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