In the Woods A truly stunning thriller and psychological mystery from one of our greatest living crime writers

Rating: 3.5 ⭐️ “Into the Woods“ was my first book by Tana French and I was quite curious how I would like it. For me “Tana French” has always been one of the big names in the world of crime novels so I was a little surprised when I saw that she has only written nine books so far. And I am using “only” here in a respectful way – I have just always thought that she had way more titles on her vita, because her name was everywhere when talking about crime novels. So, yeah, “Into the Woods” was not only my first book by Tana French but also the first book she ever wrote. And it is a good first book; I was immediately hooked. I liked the writing style, although I have to admit that I had to get used to it at first. I can’t really say what felt different about it but sometimes I had to reread some lines to get them into my brain. But once I was totally emerged into the story, I couldn’t stop reading. Technically “Into the Woods” tells two stories: the main plot, taking place in the early 2000s and another one dating back 20 years. Both are centred around Rob Ryan, the protagonist of the book. Today he works a murder detective at the Dublin Murder Squad but in 1984 he was living in a little suburb of Dublin, Knocknaree. When he was twelve years old, his two best friends Peter and Jaimie vanished without a trace while playing in the woods nearby. He was the only one coming home that evening, blood on his shoes but no memories of what happened. So, when a little girl is killed in Knocknaree, Rob is forced to return to the only place he swore to never set a foot in again. Besides his partner and best friend Cassie Maddox no one knows about his past and his connection to Knocknaree. I really loved the friendship of Rob and Cassie. It felt so open, giddy and natural. I also adored Cassie; she was such a fun character. I would have liked it if their friendship would just stay as it was but of course, there had to be an incident after which everything went to shit. Rob became such an asshole who treated everyone like crap and lost all his objectivity. And my sympathy. This somehow made it quite hard for me to enjoy the story afterwards. While I really liked the mystery and how everything came together, Rob’s behaviour kind of ruined it for me. I can see that he was traumatized and never really confronted his demons but at a certain point I was annoyed by him. And since you are inside his head, you really can’t escape that. Another point that really made me mad is that the mystery around the disappearance of Rob’s friends was not resolved – not in the slightest. So why make it a plotline at all? Yeah, okay, it gave Rob a little depth and reasons for his behaviour but it was also kind of useless. When reading the blurb, you expect his past to be an important point but it’s not. So, why? tl,dr “Into the Woods” is starting out as a strong crime novel with likeable characters but due to the immaturity of the protagonist, it gets more and more exhausting. Still the crime part is quite enjoyable. Also, the implied second story line is never really developed and just fades out at the end without any solution or insight into what happened. Which annoyed me almost more than the sad excuse of a man child called Rob Ryan. I think I will read the second book in the "Dublin Murder Squad" since Cassie and Sam (who also plays a vital role in "Into the Woods") are the protagonists of "The Likeness" and I liked them both a lot.

Ich habe auf Empfehlung von Chat GPT dieses Buch gekauft. Ich wollte ein Buch von einem Autor, der ähnlich schreibt wie Donna Tartt. Nun ja, Tana French ist definitiv nicht Donna Tartt. Mal sehen wie die andere Empfehlung bei mir ankommt. Mirjam Pessl. Sollte demnächst bei mir eintreffen.