The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

This week it’s the turn of Hachette Books Ireland to come up with the goodies and they’re offering three copies of Tana French’s THE LIKENESS for free, gratis and nuffink. First, the blurb elves:

Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to deal with the events of IN THE WOODS. She is out of the Murder Squad and has started a relationship with fellow detective Sam O’Neill but is too badly shaken to commit to Sam or to her career. Then Sam is allocated a new case, that of a young woman stabbed to death just outside Dublin. He calls Cassie to the murder scene and she finds the victim is strangely familiar. In fact, she is Cassie’s double. Not only that, but her ID says she is Lexie Madison, the identity Cassie used years ago as an undercover detective. With no leads, no suspects and no clues, Cassie’s old undercover boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: to send Cassie undercover in the dead girl’s place. She could pick up information the police would never hear and tempt the killer to finish the job. So Cassie moves into Whitethorn House, poses as a post-grad student, and prepares to enter Lexie’s world.

  Ooooh, spooky. To be in with a chance of winning a copy, just answer the following question.

Is Tana French as cute as:
(a) a button;
(b) a particularly cute button;
(c) a fox;
(d) a fox made out of particularly cute buttons?

  Answers via the comment box, please, leaving a contact email address (using ‘at’ rather than @ to confound the spam-munchkins), before noon on Tuesday, August 19. Et bon chance, mes amis …

The Unbearable Likeness Of Being

There’s a book, you probably know it, called THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera, which is good fun if you like that kind of thing. I certainly did when I read it, which is years ago now, but as far as I remember the general gist is that a life lived without responsibility – personal, social or political – results in an unbearable lightness of being. I believe Hollywood is sweating slavishly over a new adaptation, with Adam Sandler and Jessica Alba playing the leads.
  Anyhoos, the reason I mention it is that when I first heard about Tana French’s follow-up to IN THE WOODS, which was to be about all kinds of doppelgangery flummery and titled THE LIKENESS, I blogged about it and called the post ‘The Unbearable Likeness of Being’.
  Yes, it’s piss-poor. But the reason I mention it – and this is for all you folks who arrived at this post after googling ‘the unbearable likeness of being’ – is that what you’re actually looking for is THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera.
  That’s ‘lightness’, not ‘likeness’.
  No thanks, please. It’s all part of the service.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE LIKENESS by Tana French

A Grand Vizier writes: “Of the many swingeing changes made by the Princess Lilyput on her accession to the Crime Always Pays throne, the decision to give the elves a holiday was probably the most radical. And not only have the little buggers scarpered, very probably never to be seen in these here parts again, but Princess Lilyput has declared that all regular contributors to CAP – such as Adrian McKinty, KT McCaffrey, Claire Coughlan, et al – are to be upgraded from elf status to Honorary Associate Members, with immediate effect. They still won’t get paid a red cent, happily enough, but they are now entitled to call themselves CAP HAMs. Which is nice.
  “Anyhoo, here’s Claire Coughlan’s take on Tana French’s new offering …”

THE LIKENESS, Edgar-winner Tana French’s follow up to IN THE WOODS, is a hypnotic look at post Celtic Tiger Ireland in all its consumerist, property-obsessed glory. French herself grew up abroad and, as with IN THE WOODS, the novel is nuanced with an outsider’s acute powers of observation. Set between Dublin and the lush Wicklow countryside, which is richly evoked, and narrated by Detective Cassie Maddox – who appeared in IN THE WOODS as a main character – the plot involves Cassie being called upon to go undercover when a PHD student is murdered. The victim had been using an alias, ‘Lexie Madison’, that Cassie herself invented several years earlier on a previous job. Somewhat implausibly and unethically, Cassie also happens to be ‘Lexie’s’ apparent doppelganger, which enables her to slot unnoticed into her life, passing herself off as the murdered girl to her strange, close-knit group of housemates in order to find the murderer, while Lexie is, in fact, dead.
French spins a complex narrative web which unfortunately wears thin and snaps towards the story’s denouement, when she appears to be too eager to provide an antithesis to the ambiguity which defined the ending of IN THE WOODS – some elements of the tying up of narrative strands might have remained better left unsaid, in this instance. Overall though, THE LIKENESS is a make-you-late, often very funny read, from start, not-quite-to-finish. – Claire Coughlan

“That Claire Coughlan, eh? Never blummin’ satisfied. Sherryl Connelly at the New York Daily News, however, was rather more impressed with THE LIKENESS this weekend, declaring that it's “ … a book even better than the first, which was very good indeed.” Nice. For the full review, jump on over here …

Reasons To Hate Tana French # 114: She’s Gorgeous

Given that Tana French’s debut IN THE WOODS was nominated for practically every prize going bar Inter-Stellar Time-Travelling Novel of the Year 2015, and secured a debutant Edgar in the process, you’d presume that the weight of expectations for THE LIKENESS would have turned her into a haggard witch. But lo! The vid below, courtesy of Blip TV, has the hauntingly beautiful Tana blithely chatting about IN THE WOODS, THE LIKENESS and her current work-in-progress, which features Cassie Maddox’s boss as a by-all-means-necessary rogue cop. Radiant, talented and successful – don’t know about you, but right now we’re hating Ms French here at Crime Always Pays. Sigh. Roll it there, Collette …

“And Now The End Is Near / And We Face The Final Curtain / But Lo! / Do We Really?” Yep, It’s Tana French And Her Ambiguous Endings

It must be, oh, almost an entire week since we’ve mentioned Tana French (right) on Crime Always Pays, for which craven dereliction of duty we deserve nothing less than to be stood against a wall and shot with bullets of our own shite. Happily, Cream and Written By A Woman (!) rescues us from a fate worse than death with an early review of Tana’s second offering, THE LIKENESS, the gist of which runneth thusly:

“The book actually manages to surpass IN THE WOODS (her stunningly accomplished début) which is no small feat. Set in Dublin again (with the fictitious Murder Squad), this time it is Cassie who takes the lead in a plot which requires a little suspension of disbelief but pays off in spades. I caught nods to both THE SECRET HISTORY and THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (and anyone who has read Shirley Jackson gets automatic kudos from me), but they are mere nods since the central plot has nothing much to do with either …
  “French’s writing is taut, clever and, in places, truly chilling. She deserved all the praise heaped on her previous effort, and this should garner her even more. It’s a big book, but not daunting, and you’ll fly through it getting lost in the world of Whitethorn House and its inhabitants.
  “One caveat though (and not on my part; I love that French refuses to tie up her resolutions in a big shiny bow at the end): those who were disappointed with the ending of IN THE WOODS may find more to grumble about here. To me, resolutions that are not neat are more realistic, and infinitely more interesting than the bog standard crime novel resolutions, but if you like your endings completely wrapped up, you may not be happy with this ending either. However, that should be a minor quibble since a book as accomplished as this one holds many other treasures, not least the fluidity of the prose and the constant tension that seeps through it. One to savour, and I know I’ll be re-reading it in the future.”

Ah, ye olde ambiguouse endinge – what say you, Karen Harrington, ma’am?

“I understand ambiguous endings in novels and films. I’m a fan of them. I write them. And I’ve taken some heat for the ambiguous ending in JANEOLOGY. So I can understand the reasons an author employs this technique in her art. However, there comes a point when a writer must balance the ending on a scale of satisfaction by asking the question: Are my reasons for creating that ending in balance with a satisfying ending?
  “Assigning this question to Tana French’s formidable novel IN THE WOODS is tough …
  “Despite the issue with the ending, this book is still cleverly penned and engaging. French’s descriptions are first-class. Her scene-setting abilities are refined well beyond the skills of your typical debut author and this is no doubt one of the reasons this tale earned her an Edgar award. In sum, I liked this book. And in some ways, owing to the spooky atmosphere, I think this might make a better movie than it reads on the page.
  “So, what do you think? Are unresolved endings a good thing? And if so, what books including an ambiguous ending have you loved? Hated?”

  It has to be The Book of Revelations for us. That whole apocalypse deal – y’know, the ‘Will it-Won’t it?’ dynamic … sterling stuff from St John, we think you’ll agree.

Book Trailers – Yea Or Nay?

Two very handsome book trailers came our way this week, folks, the first courtesy of honorary Irish crime writer Tony Black, whose PAYING FOR IT hits a shelf near you on July 17. Roll it there, Collette …

Then we stumbled across a trailer for the American edition of Tana French’s IN THE WOODS, which is ever-so-suitably spooky. Collette? In your own time, ma’am …

What we’re wondering, though, especially since we’re thinking of generating a book trailer of our own to mark the US publication of our humble offering THE BIG O, is whether book trailers are doing what it says on their celluloid tins. Yes, they’re all zeitgeisty and whatnot in terms of viral marketing, but does anyone really watch them? Has any book trailer blown YOU away? We were very taken with John McFetridge’s trailer for EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE, certainly …

… but has anyone ever rushed out to buy a book on the basis of its trailer? Are book trailers delivering where it matters? Or are they the mini-cinematic equivalent of bookmarks? Talk to us, people …

“Another French Fancy, Vicar?”

The build-up to the eagerly awaited publication to Tana French’s sequel to IN THE WOODS, THE LIKENESS, continues apace, with Publishers Weekly conducting a small but perfectly formed interview with Tana, a sample of which runneth thusly:

Q: THE LIKENESS has elements of a locked room mystery, with all the characters, including the potential killer, living under the same roof. Was this a challenge?
A: “Absolutely. I love the conventions of the mystery genre, the fact that you start out with such tight parameters: somebody gets killed and somebody finds out whodunit. I like twisting and breaking these parameters. One of my twists is that the main characters like being in their “locked room,” they like being in their own world. So the question becomes, is the danger from outside or from inside?”

Erm, we give up. But is it possible that the danger is neither outside nor inside, but – gasp! – somewhere in between? That’s right, folks – it’s a new sub-sub-sub-genre, the Killer Door Mystery! Did we mention we’re giving these ideas away for free?

The Doppelganger’s All Here

The ever-fragrant Sarah Weinman reports that The Bookseller hosts an in-depth profile on Tana French as she revs up for the publication of THE LIKENESS, her much anticipated sequel to IN THE WOODS, a flavour of which runneth thusly:

French is self-deprecating when it comes to her skills as a writer. “I don’t know what I’m doing when I start a book,” she says. “It starts off looking like this horrific explosion in a dictionary. I have a premise and a narrator. I can’t have a plot summary, because I don’t know the characters well enough at that point to know what they would or wouldn’t do.”
  French believes her acting was great training: “It is a very natural progression, from creating a character and a world for an audience to creating one for a reader—it made sense to me.”
  […]
  Writing crime was a natural choice. “I love the shape of mystery,” she explains. “It’s so tight, and yet there’s so much you can do with it. You can play with the parameters, turn things inside out, and I really enjoy that.”

Crime fiction – it’s literary Twister, innit? For another in-depth profile on Tana, this one courtesy of the ever-radiant Claire Coughlan, hop-skip-and-jump over here. Or, y’know, don’t. We’ll still love you anyway …

The Sunday Roast

A Minister for Propaganda Elf writes: “A few tasty little interweb Sunday dumplings for your delectation, people. First up is CAP’s good friend Bernd Kochanowski (right), who is currently hosting the latest incarnation of the Crime Carnival over at Krimis Internationale and doing nothing whatsoever to undermine the stereotype of German efficiency and thoroughness. Quoth Bernd:

“Therefore it isn’t easy to present something new. Most of the keepers of blogs work hard to present regularly new topics and new posts. As a result readers are at a certain risk to forget last week’s post, not to mention last month’s post, although these posts had thrilled them so much. Therefore my question to you: Which older post would you like to see in a blog museum?”

  “We’re taking the Fifth. Meanwhile, over at Detectives Beyond Borders, Peter Rozovsky may or may not announce the first outing for Noir at the Bar, a revolutionary new concept that juxtaposes crime fiction readings with music. The bar in question is the Tritone in Philly, and the first writer up to the mike is – trumpet parp there, maestro – Duane Swierczynski. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll, but we like it, etc.
  “Finally, the one-man lunatic asylum that is Critical Mick has a review of Tana French’s IN THE WOODS, but as always there’s a twist. Firstly, it appears that Critical Mick’s copy of IN THE WOODS was snaffled by a literary-minded burglar, and secondly, the Mickster has provided an mp3 version of the review for all of you funky, teched-up interweb heads out there. Mick also has a request of us, which runneth thusly:

“If you are looking for content for CAP, feel free to mention the Writing Show’s current First Chapter of a Novel Contest. You were good enough to mention it last year: you can call this Bleeding Fingers II. The contest is open for submissions now, and there’s still about three weeks to meet the early deadline. Full details are on The Writing Show’s website. I will be most grateful.”

  “Mickster? We’re not worthy. Although we do represent decent value for money, particularly now that the euro is so strong against sterling and the dollar. Love one another, people. Out.”

French Kissing In The USA*

So there we were at 6.30am trying to make a funny out of the Edgars and THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE and the fact that Tana French’s (right) second name is, well, you follow our drift, when we realised that trying to make funnies before the first bucket of coffee goes down the hatch may well cause our collective spinal cords to leap up and strangle what’s left of our pitiful collective brains. So, instead, we’ll just give it to you straight – Sarah Weinman reports that Tana French’s debut novel IN THE WOODS has won the Edgar for Best First Novel By An American Author. Hoo-rah! Of course, the downside to Tana’s win means that we’ll have to disinclude her from the roster of Irish crime fiction writers, but that’s a small price to pay. Run wild, Tana, run free! Meanwhile, the winner of the Best Novel award was John Hart’s DOWN RIVER, and Megan Abbott scooped the Best Paperback Original with QUEENPIN. Bernd Kochanowski? We still love you, but you’re sacked. For all the Edgar details, jump on over here …

* How long have we been waiting use that header? Way too long, that’s how long ...

Tree Lines

While on an archaeological dig, former actress Tana French (right) saw some woods nearby and thought they would make the perfect setting for a mystery story. The result is a stunning crime novel debut for the Dublin-based author, says Claire Coughlan

Tana French looks more like the actress she used to be before writing took over – an expressive elfin face, intense hazel eyes and a floaty top, coupled with one of those treacly voices that you’d listen to reading the phone bill, gives more away about her former profession (although she says she’d love to combine acting and writing) than it does about her current one.   But then you get the 34-year-old talking about writing – crime writing to be specific – and suddenly the keen interest in psychology and social commentary immediately come to the fore and you can see why it’s no coincidence that she’s sold the rights to her debut novel IN THE WOODS (it came out last year) in 15 territories.
  She begins talking about why she thinks there are suddenly a slew of Irish crime novels about post Celtic Tiger Ireland.
  “I think the Celtic Tiger happened so fast and hit so hard that it’s taken a while for people to catch up and get a little perspective and write about it, because it’s quite hard to write about something when it first happens – you don’t actually know what just hit you,” she says.
  “And I think what I’m mostly write about – and this isn’t deliberate, it’s just the way it happens – both IN THE WOODS and the second book, The Likeness (which is out in August, where Cassie, a detective from the IN THE WOODS is the narrator), and the third book, which I’m just starting – are about what happens when the past meets the present. I think that’s a good thing, in Dublin right now especially, what happens when the past and the present crash into each other at 100 miles an hour? That’s crucial to everything, you know, how do you welcome an influx of immigrants without wrecking the character of the city, or – and this is in the book as well – we need new roads but how do you balance that without wrecking our heritage? I think we’re trying to find a way to balance the past and present without wrecking both.”
  French was born to an Irish father and a half-Russian, half-Italian mother and she grew up in America, Malawi, Italy and Ireland, thanks to her father’s job as a development economist, before settling back in Ireland in 1990 and subsequently training as an actress at Trinity College.
  “I think it does give you that borderline perspective where you almost belong but not quite. As in, I don’t have friends here that I’ve known since I was five and I think always having that slight outsider perspective – it means that you notice things that someone who’s never been anywhere else would take for granted and you’re analysing stuff that you might take for granted if you didn’t have that slight outsider’s eye,” she says.
  And as an ‘outsider’ looking in, is it any coincidence that she chose to write crime fiction in the current climate?
  “I think that crime writing deals with whatever society’s frightened of. In Ireland it’s what goes on behind closed doors and the vulnerability of kids – we realise so much more how vulnerable kids are in our society.”
  IN THE WOODS tells the story of Rob Ryan, a detective who, when he was a child, went playing in a wood outside Dublin with two friends – the other two never came back. Now Rob is called back to the same wood to solve a murder, that of a child, and he must confront his past while doing so.
  French actually got the idea for the story while she was on an archaeology dig.
  “There was a wood near a dig and I was thinking, ‘God, that’s a great place for kids to play.’”
  But French, being a psychological crime writer couldn’t let it rest there.
  “I think any psychological crime writer is someone who’s always looking for the mystery – I’ve loved mysterious stuff ever since I was a kid – true, fictional, whatever. And so because of that, instead of saying, ‘Ah, that’s a lovely place for kids to play,’ I said: ‘What would happen if three kids went in there and only one ever came out with no memory of what happened?’
  “I was looking for the biggest mystery I could come up with. And I scribbled the idea down on a bit of paper and went off to do the next show and forgot all about it. And a year later, I was moving flat and I found this bit of paper, under all the old phone bills with jam on it with the idea, and I thought, ‘I’d like to do something with that’. What would that do to the third kid, the one who came back, knowing that he’s got the solution to this mystery somewhere in his mind but he can’t find it?”
  And thankfully, for us, French isn’t the ‘Ah, isn’t that a nice place for kids to play’ type of person. Hallelujah for that.

IN THE WOODS is published by Hodder Headline Ireland and is nominated for an Irish Book Award.

This article was first published in the Evening Herald’s HQ magazine

Lingua Franca

It’s been a good month for Tana French (right), people. First her debut novel IN THE WOODS was nominated for an Edgar, then the Los Angeles Book Festival Awards, and then she was nominated for an Irish Book Award. Now, courtesy of The Rap Sheet, comes the news that IN THE WOODS has been nominated for ‘Best First Novel’ by The Strand Magazine, the full list of nominees running thusly:

• THE BLADE ITSELF by Marcus Sakey (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• IN THE WOODS, by Tana French (Viking)
• THE MARK, by Jason Pinter (Mira Books)
• MISSING WITNESS, by Gordon Campbell (Morrow)
• WHEN ONE MAN DIES, by Dave White (Crown Publishing)

And not only that, but occasional CAP elf and head honcho at International Crime, Bernd Kochanowski, recently gave IN THE WOODS the ‘four-thumbs aloft’ review. It’s going to be a big ask for the ever-lovely Tana to repeat the performance with the sequel, THE LIKENESS, but we have faith in her. What’s that? Our humble opinions are worthless? Fair go. But maybe you’ll be more accommodating of Critical Mick’s verdict on what’s quickly becoming Irish crime fiction’s news story of the year …

“No Way, Guv – I’ve Been Framed.”

THE LIKENESS, Tana French’s sequel to IN THE WOODS, features a rather ornate cover that comes complete with gilt frame, and will be on a shelf near you on July 17th if you’re in the U.S. and August 21st if you’re on the other side of the pond. Quoth the blurb elves:

Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to deal with the events of IN THE WOODS. She is out of the Murder Squad and has started a relationship with fellow detective Sam O’Neill but is too badly shaken to commit to Sam or to her career. Then Sam is allocated a new case, that of a young woman stabbed to death just outside Dublin. He calls Cassie to the murder scene and she finds the victim is strangely familiar. In fact, she is Cassie’s double. Not only that, but her ID says she is Lexie Madison, the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective. With no leads, no suspects and no clues, Cassie’s old undercover boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: to send Cassie undercover in the dead girls place. She could pick up information the police would never hear and tempt the killer to finish the job. So Cassie moves into Whitethorn House, poses as a post-grad student, and prepares to enter Lexie’s world …

Ah yes, the old riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma gambit, with a doppelganger tossed in to boot. Strap yourself in for another one of those ambiguous endings, folks …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: IN THE WOODS by Tana French

IN THE WOODS is an astonishing primeur, fuller and more zaftig than most of its kind. Praised by reviewers, its nomination for the Edgar Awards was only a surprise because French’s major contribution to her obligation as an American citizen was her birth in Vermont.
  The book is often described as a psycho thriller, which it not wrong but nevertheless give a wrong impression: it is much more than that. On the first 400 of its never boring 600 pages, IN THE WOODS reads like a crossbreed of a classical whodunit and James Ellroy’s THE BLACK DAHLIA.
  The corpse of a young girl is found on an altar stone on an archaeological excavation site. She had been clubbed and suffocated and an object was inserted into her vagina to suggest a rape ...
  There seems to be no plausible motives to explain the murder and still several lines of investigation are followed. The father of the girl is a chairman of a citizens’ action committee that wants to prevent the construction of a motorway which would destroy the site of the excavation. Much money is at stake and he receives anonymous and threatening telephone calls. The family itself seems strange, somewhat deranged, as if there is something wrong ... but the detectives cannot put their finger on it. And then there is the excavation site, an archaeological treasure situated on an old pagan sanctuary, sacrificed by politicians to build the motorway at exactly that place.
  Substantial investigational police work is done, several tracks are followed, a lot of working days are deployed, but all this without any results.
  The small village where the crime happened had been the scene of a crime once before. At that time three children, all 12 years old, two boys and one girl, played as they usually did in a small wood. At the end of the day two of them were missing and never found. The third stood at a tree, scratching with his finger nails at the bark with his shoes filled with blood. What happened he doesn’t know and will never know: he has suffered a total blackout. Adam Ryan was the name of the boy; now he is Rob Ryan and he is one of the detectives who try to solve the case of the murdered girl.
  His partner, Cassie, a young woman, together maintain a very close and deep platonic friendship. She knows his secret, which accompanies the investigation, hinders it, advances it.
  The coexistence of the personal relationship of Cassie and Rob and the unfathomable secret, which plagues Rob and threatens to destroy him, lends a very intensive atmosphere to the book.
  And then, on the last 200 pages, as the case is about to be solved, French whirls and shuffles the different strands of the plot and creates a emotional cauldron with a satisfying solution.
  It is a daring book. A lesser writer would have abbreviated the lush text, reined in the narrative flow and dealt with the end in a more conventional manner. However, this is multilayered, moves stylistically from one subgenre to another, and pleases again and again with opulent and felicitous phrases.

“I never knew and never will whether either Cassie or I was a great detective, though I suspect not, but I know this: we made a team worthy of bard-songs and history books. This was our last and greatest dance together, danced in a tiny interview room with darkness outside and rain falling soft and relentless on the roof, for no audience but the doomed and the dead.”

Reviewed by Bernd Kochanowski and republished with the kind permission of International Crime.

“As God Is My Witness, They’re Not Going To Lick Me.”

The Times recently made Tana French’s (right) IN THE WOODS a readers’ book-group pick, with Alyson Rudd mediating, and the verdict – or mixed verdicts – are coming in thick and fast over here. As part of the piece, Rudd had a quick Q&A with Tana, to wit:

AR: Knocknaree – is this an imaginary place?
TF: “Imaginary, but unfortunately there are a lot of places in Ireland that fit the general description: hugely important archaeological sites destroyed by development. Ireland’s at a very strange point – over the past ten years the economic boom has hit us with decades’ worth of changes, and we’re still trying to assimilate them and find a way to balance past, present and future.”

In a nutshell, Ireland today could be summarised by a couple of news stories that just won’t quit rumbling on: the impending demolition of the 5,000-year-old Tara, seat of the ancient Irish high kings, to make way for a motorway (‘Knocknaree’ translates from the Irish as ‘the Hill of the Kings’); and the (totally unrelated) appalling vista of an taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s regular attempts to explain to the Mahon Tribunal where all the cash payments came from way back when, the Mahon Tribunal concerning itself with the possibility of improper influence exerted on politicians in matters of planning and development. Sure isn’t it all great craic all the same?

Maybe The People Would Be The Times*

It’s people power, folks. Maxine at Petrona brings us the news that lunatics with impeccable taste have taken over at the reading asylum known as The Times’ book group. Quoth Maxine:

Tana French’s IN THE WOODS will be the next title to be read by the Times book group. Alyson Rudd, editor of the group, writes: “This is a real treat for Christmas. IN THE WOODS is a classic murder mystery with plenty of twists and macabre detail.” She continues: “This is Tana French’s debut and is startlingly accomplished. Many detective stories are described as “superior” to differentiate them from the many lazy and predictable thrillers out there — but this really is. French writes beautifully and is far from lazy when it comes to sprinkling clues and red herrings and developing the characters.”

In other words, IN THE WOODS is a Ruddy good read. That lazy enough for ya?

* A free copy of IN THE WOODS to the first person to get in touch and let us know the album this header comes from. Ray Banks? You’re barred.

Mi Cassie, Su Cassie

THE LIKENESS, Tana French’s (right) follow-up to IN THE WOODS, is due out on March 6, and features a fairly bold ploy on behalf of the writer that suggests the novel will be doing exactly what it says on the tin. Quoth the Hodder & Stoughton blurb elves:

Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to deal with the events of IN THE WOODS. She is out of the Murder Squad and has started a relationship with fellow detective Sam O’Neill but is too badly shaken to commit – to Sam or to her career. Then Sam is allocated a new case, that of a young woman stabbed to death just outside Dublin. He calls Cassie to the murder scene and she finds the victim is strangely familiar. In fact, she is Cassie’s double. Not only that, but her ID says she is Lexie Madison – the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective. With no leads, no suspects and no clues, Cassie’s old undercover boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: to send Cassie undercover in the dead girl’s place. She could pick up information the police would never hear and tempt the killer to finish the job. So Cassie moves into Whitethorn House, poses as a post-grad student, and prepares to enter Lexie’s world!

Oooh, spooky. Will Cassie wind up a dead ringer for her, y’know, dead ringer? Only time, that perennially doity rat, will tell …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: IN THE WOODS by Tana French

Although long, IN THE WOODS is a cracking read. I have often read the word “unputdownable” to describe a book, but in this case it is true: I was glad I started the book on a weekend and had no other commitments, so I could finish it in a day. Adam Ryan has fulfilled his lifelong ambition to become a detective in the Irish police force. But because of a tragic event in his childhood, in which two of his friends vanished, never to be found, he calls himself “Rob” Ryan and does not reveal his past. He’s best friends in a platonic way with fellow-detective Cassie, and near the start of the book the partners take on a case of a young girl who has been found murdered at an archaeological site – in the very same woods where Rob’s friends had disappeared more than 20 years ago. Rob feels compelled to investigate the case as he’s convinced it must have something to do with the earlier tragedy: so he persuades Cassie, who knows his secret, not to confide in their superiors. Most of the rest of the book describes the details of the police investigation: the interviews of the idealistic archaeologists who are hurrying to complete their excavation before a new motorway is built; the residents of the nearby estate where the girl lived; and local businessmen who have been threatening the dead girl’s father, who heads up the protest group to try to stop the motorway from being built. Events are filtered through Rob’s vision, so the reader experiences his panic and paranoia about the case, and his increasing sense of unease. Rob is close to Cassie, but keeps her at arm’s length. He lives in a flat rented from an ex-girlfriend, who is presented in an unflattering light – but Rob liked her well enough once, and the reader is aware that events in Rob’s past seem to inhibit him from being able to relate not only to girlfriends but also to his parents and his police colleagues. The phrase “screwed up” seems designed to apply to Rob. IN THE WOODS is a long book, but does not fall for the easy solution of providing more bodies to help the detectives solve the crime, and sustains a high level of relentless tension throughout. In fact, the villain is easy for the seasoned reader to identify, but even so this does not matter, as the way in which the case is solved is chillingly suspenseful, and the writing style superb (although one of my pet hates of crime-fiction, the “fine-tooth comb” makes a couple of appearances). The conclusion of the case is pretty downbeat. It is always hard to review crime fiction books in much detail without giving the game away, but almost everyone ends up being disappointed in some way; even though the case of the young girl is solved in the sense of the murderer being identified, the story surrounding her death is genuinely creepy. I was sorry that the older mystery was left in the way that it was, but maybe we will find out more if Rob Ryan returns in future. It isn’t clear that he will, however: Tana French's next book, THE LIKENESS (not yet published) will feature Cassie, who although secondary to Rob in IN THE WOODS, is certainly sufficiently intriguing to justify being a more central character in future. I’m looking forward to finding out what she does next, although I’d be disappointed not to find out any more about poor, sad Rob.- Maxine Clarke

Maxine blogs at Petrona. Her reviews are collected at Petrona Book Reviews.

This review is republished by the kind permission of Euro Crime.

If You Go Into The Woods Today …

A Euro Crime-shaped birdie brings us the glad tidings that Tana French’s IN THE WOODS has scooped the 2007 International Visual Communications Association ‘Book Award’. Quoth the IVCA blurb elves:

“Tana French’s brilliantly crafted first novel embodies, in its story of a murder on an archaeological site in Ireland, a fascinating critique of human emotions, social mores, environmental issues and complex personal motivation. IN THE WOODS is an immediate, sometimes moving but always compelling reinvention of our most popular genre – the murder mystery.”

It’s yet another feather in the rakishly angled French cap, which was once a suitably modish beret but is now starting to take on the proportions of Sitting Bull’s favourite ceremonial headdress. A fashion faux pas? Perhaps – but what the hell else is a gal supposed to do with those blummin’ feathers, eh?

All The World’s A Stage, And Each Must Write Her Part

Ex-actress and current best-selling author Tana French (right) gets the kind of mild grilling you might expect in a Q&A session over at Penguin, but there’s some fascinating insights on offer nonetheless, not least of which is her assertion that she’s as much an actress when writing as when on stage, to wit:

Q: In addition to becoming an author, you have acquired a strong reputation as an actor. Why do you think IN THE WOODS came out of you in the shape of a novel, instead of a script or a screenplay?
TF: “This may sound strange, but writing IN THE WOODS as a novel was actually a lot closer to acting than writing a script or a screenplay would have been. The book is first person — everything is seen through Rob Ryan’s eyes, filtered through his perceptions and described in his voice. That was my job as an actor for years: to create a character and spend hours a day operating completely from her perspective. Writing IN THE WOODS was just an extension of that process. I played Rob Ryan for almost two years — on paper, rather than on stage, but the mental process was the same. To write the story as a script or a screenplay, I would have needed to work from a much more detached point of view, coming at it as an all-seeing outsider rather than as a character experiencing the story from inside, and I don’t have a clue how to do that. Working from inside is all I know.”

Method in her madness, eh? Stanislavski would surely have been proud …