In the Woods | Tana French

In the Woods | Tana French | Left in a dark, dark wood after reading this story...

books:

In the Woods

	In the Woods Tana French Penguin (Non-Classics), 2008 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 161 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox?his partner and closest friend?find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

Richly atmospheric, stunning in its complexity, and utterly convincing and surprising to the end, In the Woods is sure to enthrall fans of Mystic River and The Lovely Bones.

for more information click here

Engrossing

If you like your book endings wrapped in neat packages with ribbons, this is not the book for you. This is an engrossing psychological thriller with a twisting and twisted plot. I could barely put the book down and I loved every minute. Great read.

Left in a dark, dark wood after reading this story...

I have to agree with many of the other reviewers who said that this book was hard to get into at first. I consider myself a very fast reader but had a hard time getting through the first hundred or so pages of this book. In the end (if you can call it that) I was left annoyed and puzzled. Had I missed something (after skimming through some of the last chapters in order to finish this book)? It turns out I had not missed the ending, because it was never written. Everyone leads a very busy life and reading is an escape to that life. I do not find it joyful or a stress relief when I have to go back and figure out why the author would leave their readers high and dry with loose ends. I was looking forward to a unique explanation for why these children disappeared in the woods, and right up until the last page was hoping I would get one. Maybe this ending is considered "different" and "clever" but to me it is just disappointing and it seems to me as if Tana French got so bored with her own book that she could not come up with a good enough ending, so she left us without one. This is an author I will not read any other works from ever again!

for more information click here

The Ending

Spoiler alert. Does anyone think Ryan could have been the killer of his two friends and that he himself was a pyschopath. Perhaps he didn't want their friendship to change. This might explain why he didn't see it in Rosalind. Also, it might explain why he spurns his partner when they get too close. Cassie might have recognized that he was. They made a big deal about her being able to flag psychopaths. She was also shaken by her conversation with the former cop. Also, the one section has Ryan talking about how he is a liar.
At the end, it seemed that Devlin talked about how he was going to send his daughter away to keep her safe. Did Ryan's parents send him away because they thought he was guilty? just a thought.

for more information click here