When a call comes into the Dublin Murder Squad that some archaeologists have found a body, detectives Ryan and Maddox are on hand to field the case. Against expectations, the body is not one long-dead they have unearthed, but one freshly laid out on the alter stone at the excavation site at Knocknaree. The victim is quickly identified as a young local girl, Katy Devlin.
So, no cold case this. But there is one, still unsolved, associated with Knocknaree where in 1984 three local children went into the adjacent wood and only one returned, bloodstained, traumatised, and amnesiac. The returnee was young Adam Robert Ryan, who subsequently moved to England, losing his Irish accent before coming back unrecognised to join the Dublin police as plain Rob Ryan. And now he finds himself on the new case, filled with opportunities to stir his reluctant memory into life.
His fellow detective, Cassie Maddox, is the only one who knows his past, but they are a tight platonic partnership, so she goes along with his unwise decision to continue on the case.
The pair work their systematic way through the police procedural, the routine enlivened by their banter and gallows humour. But progress is slow and unrewarding due to inconclusive forensics, alibis galore, multiple but weak motives, and unreliable witnesses. On top of that, Rob Ryan’s echoing past affects his judgement and leads to some bad decisions that threaten the case.
Will they find Katy’s killer? If they do will the case withstand Rob’s tainted approach? And can he, in the process, crack the twenty-year-old mystery of his friends’ disappearance and his own, guilt-ridden, survival?
Tana French keeps
the pot simmering along for the best part of 600 pages, unfolding each thread
with deft mastery of plot and character. There are more novels about the Dublin
Murder Squad, and I wouldn’t rule out another dip in.
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