Faithful Place by Tana French Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Most people are only too delighted to wreck each other's heads. And for the tiny minority who do their pathetic best not to, this world is going to go right ahead and make sure they do it anyway.”- Faithful Place, Tana French

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was a nineteen year old kid with a dream of escaping his family's cramped flat on Faithful Place and running away to London with his girl, Rosie Daly. But on the night they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd dumped him - probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again. Neither did Rosie. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank, now a detective in the Dublin Undercover squad, is going home whether he likes it or not. 

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he's a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly - and he's willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.

I've written many times of my ardent love for the work of Tana French. Having read three of her prior works and loving two of them (I'll probably reread The Trespasser in June after I read Broken Harbor and The Secret Place, might like it more now than I did back in December), I was fully prepared to love this book. And I did, but not as much as the first two in the series.

The problem was not the writing. It was what you'd expect of French- great characters, great dialogue, expert wording and sentence structure. I love how easily I can tell all her characters apart, how you could give me a quote from any of the books I've read by her and I can tell you which book it was based off narrative alone. Frank was an enjoyable narrator, reminding me of the main character in a hardboiled PI story. I also liked the relationships present, especially Frank and his daughter's. You don't see very many father-daughter relationships in fiction, so I liked that. The beginning and ending were also pretty pitch-perfect, as you'd expect from her writing. It was easily her funniest work too- I actually laughed out loud at several points.

Honestly, the above was really the only sign that this was a Tana French novel. I was disappointed by the amount of domestic drama and lack of actual police procedure. There weren't as many red herrings as there are usually in her work. I get that French was trying to break out of her formula, but honestly, that formula wasn't a bad one. I was kind of hoping she'd pull some last minute twist, but then was disappointed when that didn't happen.

Happily, French did have some Irish cultural bits, and she translates the sound of an Irish accent to the page really successfully. One thing I noticed about Irish accents, by the way, is just how much people in Ireland can tell about you based on what accent you have. That's something that interests me, especially since we don't really have that in America. Sure, there are some dialects and accents that are stereotyped as being rich or poor or educated or uneducated, but for the most part we don't really pay much attention to accents apart from it being a tip-off about where someone is from.

There were a few things that were different about this book that some readers might actually like more. I found this book to be less verbose than her other works. Sure, French can still set up a scene and write descriptions that make you feel like whatever it is she's describing is right in front of you, but it's not as ornate. This was also a faster read than her other books were. Some may also find Frank to be more engaging than Cassie or Ryan were. Also, this is more of a straight-up mystery novel than a crime novel or police procedural. I personally prefer the latter, but if you like the former more than this might be your favorite French novel. 

Honestly, this book was the only one that didn't fit in with the rest of the Dublin Murder Squad series. Frank and Cooper were the only characters from the other two to appear again. I get that French wants to progress in the series with new characters, but couldn't she at least have given us a cameo of Cassie or Sam (thought Sam would be the most likely since he was the one still working Murder)? Frank wasn't even a part of Murder, he was in Undercover. Looking at the synopsis of the next two books in the series, Scorcher and Stephen become our next narrators, and they were in this book, but other than that this book felt more like a spin-off than anything else.

Did I still like this book and give it a high score? Yes, of course. But I didn't love it the same way I loved both The Likeness and In the Woods. I mean, it's not like this book is going to deter me from picking up the rest of the series.

8-8.5 out of 10