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My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tana French came highly recommended to me, and I am pleased to report that that recommendation spoke truth and wisdom. I initially checked this book out from the library, only to decide partway through that yeah, I wanted to actually own a copy. So I returned the library book and promptly bought my own.

French’s command of language and imagery was part of the initial recommendation, but what also drew me to this book was its being a police procedural-flavored mystery set in Ireland. And then there’s the plot itself: a young boy who was the sole survivor of an assault that caused the disappearances of his two friends has grown up to be a police detective. Rob Ryan’s changed his name and worked hard to groom himself into a more refined persona, doing everything in his power to distance himself from his childhood. But a child has been murdered in his old town, and he and his partner Cassie Maddox are assigned to the case. Ryan must therefore choose between revealing his past and risk being taken off the case–or struggling through his own memories as he and Maddox pursue the girl’s killer.

There’s a great deal to like here. First and foremost I very much respected that Ms. French struck the exact right balance between making her protagonist unreliable and keeping him compelling. Rob is often not a very likeable character; he’s selfish in many ways, and his motives about keeping his past secret are tied more into that than into his desire to bring their young victim justice. He makes multiple bad choices, leading me more than once to want to smack him hard. Yet even so, he was vividly portrayed, and at no point did I not want to know what happened to him next.

Cassie Maddox, his partner and best friend, goes a long way to keeping him in check through most of the plot. The chemistry between them–even when it is still at a platonic level–is excellent. It’s clear that these two are well-matched as partners, each having attributes the other lacks, making the two of them together stronger than each one alone. Yet I cannot mention Cassie without also mentioning the third major character, Sam O’Neill, who works the case with them. Sam’s clearly interested in Cassie, and yet that interest takes second chair to the much more intense relationship she has with Rob. Trust me when I say, too, that Sam’s presence in the plot ultimately proves critical.

The book’s resolution is hard-won, be warned, and our trio of detectives do not come through unscathed. It’s the ending, too, that makes me pull this down to four stars rather than five, just because while I did continue to find Rob a compelling character, in the end I did still want to smack him. Still, though, I very much enjoyed this read. Four stars.

ETA: Correcting the title of the post from Into the Woods to In the Woods. Oops! Thanks, !

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Trick of the Mind, the third book of Cassandra Chan’s Bethancourt-Gibbons series of mysteries, was actually the first one I bought thanks to finding a hardcover copy at a local used bookstore–but I didn’t want to read it till I swung back and covered the first two. I’m glad I did that, because as of the this installment, the series starts feeling to me like it’s really gotten its feet under it. Jack Gibbons has been shot in the line of duty, much to the alarm of his good friend Bethancourt as well as Bethancourt’s girlfriend Marla. But to Phillip’s further alarm, Jack can’t remember who shot him. And so it’s up to Phillip to track down the details of his last case.

I am of course a documented sucker for amnesia plots, and even though poor Gibbons loses only a couple of days out of his memory, they are nonetheless critical. And it’s a perfect crisis to let not only Phillip and Marla but several other significant characters as well–like Jack’s boss and Jack’s parents–show their true mettle. I particularly liked that Marla, despite her previous acrimony about Phillip’s engaging himself with police work, nonetheless gives him quite a bit of support as he hastens off to his wounded friend’s side. There’s quite a bit of mileage from the point of view Jack’s boss Carmichael and Carmichael’s wife Dotty as well, and between them and a few other characters, the reader is given quite a decent picture of all of Jack’s colleagues working feverishly to figure out who shot him and why.

Bethancourt is no Peter Wimsey, and yet he does carry on Wimsey’s tradition of the nobleman investigator very well. The personal stakes of his friend’s being threatened give this particular investigation a keener edge for him, much to the story’s overall benefit. I quite enjoyed every bit of it. Four stars.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Village Affairs, the second in Cassandra Chan’s Bethancourt-Gibbons series, is the first to show signs of the series seriously getting its feet under it. It’s not quite as strong yet as the third and fourth novels, but the pieces are all in place here, and all of them are starting to work well together.

This book kicks in not terribly long after the events of the first book–and Gibbons, unfortunately, is in sad straits. (More than that I won’t say, so as to avoid spoilers.) But Bethancourt’s girlfriend is doing a photo shoot in a small town in the English Cotswolds, and it just so happens that a murder has taken place there, providing Jack with an excellent opportunity to enlist his friend’s aid. A nice tangled little murder investigation ensues, complete with the obligatory cast of colorful characters. In particular, the vital young vicar and his beautiful wife stand out for me as memorable.

Overall the actual murder investigation–which, at first, doesn’t even necessarily seem like a murder–takes second place to me behind the characters. In particular, Bethancourt’s stormy relationship with Marla holds a lot of interest, as Marla highly disapproves of his participating in murder investigations. Set off against Jack’s depression over the events that have happened between the last book and this one, it makes for great character development fodder for all three characters. You should definitely read the first one before reading this one, though, to pick up on the proper context for Jack’s state throughout the plot.

Three stars.

ETA: Corrected “second and third novels” to be “third and fourth”. Thanks, !