GREAT READS

In the Woods

Tana French

In the Woods by Tana French is one of those mystery novels that is not like any other. The major difference I noticed was the narrator. I have found with mystery novels the narrator is strong, slightly flawed and likable. French chose Rob Ryan, a flawed and sometimes weak character to tell her story. Rob is a homicide investigator in Dublin, Ireland and this novel delves into not one but two homicides twenty years apart. Rob immediately sees the similarities in these two cases. The children were the same ages and were killed in the same town, in the same area of the woods. The first case involved three children, two of which went missing and the third was found in a catatonic state and was never able the recall what had happened in the woods. Twenty years later a young girl went missing and was found murdered in the same woods.  You see Rob is not who he says he is at all. His name is really Adam Robert Ryan and he was the third child from the case twenty years prior. He was the boy that was found alive.

Recommended by Shannon Jackson