BookOpinion

Tana French appears to be making a successful debut as a novelist with her first book, In the Woods. The thriller was just released last week and is getting strong reviews. It has cracked Amazon’s top 100 sellers.

French worked on an archaeological dig around a castle when she was inspired to write this Irish police procedural. Next to the castle were some woods. “While I’m working away up to my eyes the mud,” French said in a video interview below, “I am thinking what would happen if three kids ran into those woods to play and only one ever came out, and he had no memory of what happened.”

The N.Y. Times writes:

…The way French tells it, the history of Knocknaree will never be whole until the dual mysteries of Katy’s death and the disappearance of the children are resolved. Although she overburdens the traditional police-procedural form with the weight of romance, psychological suspense, social history and mythic legend, she sets a vivid scene for her complex characters, who seem entirely capable of doing the unexpected. Drawn by the grim nature of her plot and the lyrical ferocity of her writing, even smart people who should know better will be able to lose themselves in these dark woods.

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The Seattle Times reviewed the book:

“In the Woods” (Viking, 429 pp., $24.95) is an auspicious debut from a young Irish writer, Tana French. The theater-trained French clearly knows a thing or two about drama.

A child is murdered at an archaeological dig near Dublin. Years before in those same woods, two children disappeared and a third was found with blood in his shoes and no memory of what happened. A homicide detective, Rob Ryan, finds a clue connecting the cases, and, desperate to stay on the investigation team, hides an explosive secret: as a kid, and with a different name, he was that boy in the woods.

The book’s plot and pacing are rock-solid, but its tender characterizations — particularly the deepening relationship between Ryan and his brainy, tough female partner — are what set it apart. Strong stuff.

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USA Today also briefly covered the novel:

Readers who like their hard-boiled police procedurals with an international flair will love Irish author Tana French’s debut novel(on sale Monday) Detective Rob Ryan of the Dublin Murder Squad snags a case involving the murder of a young girl. What most people don’t know — and Ryan isn’t telling — is that 20 years earlier he was found in the same woods remembering nothing about how he ended up there without his two playmates. They were never found. The hunt for the killer of young Katy Devlin is brilliantly laid out, as is the unraveling of Ryan’s blocked memories. Could there be a connection? In the Woods is as creepily imaginative as it gets.

Below is a short interview with the author about In the Woods:

The audio version of this book is also available for instant download at these sites: