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Dublin Murder Squad #6
The Trespasser
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller (2016)The bestselling novel by Tana French, author of The Witch Elm, is “required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting” (The New York Times). She “inspires cultic devotion in readers” (The New Yorker) and is “the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years” (The Washington Post).
“Atmospheric and unputdownable.” —People
In bestselling author Tana French’s newest “tour de force” (The New York Times), being on the Murder Squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she’s there. The rest of her working life is a stream of thankless cases, vicious pranks, and harassment. Antoinette is savagely tough, but she’s getting close to the breaking point.
Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers’ quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty, groomed-to-a-shine, and dead in her catalog-perfect living room, next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There’s nothing unusual about her—except that Antoinette’s seen her somewhere before.
And that her death won’t stay in its neat by-numbers box. Other detectives are trying to push Antoinette and Steve into arresting Aislinn’s boyfriend, fast. There’s a shadowy figure at the end of Antoinetteʼs road. Aislinnʼs friend is hinting that she knew Aislinn was in danger. And everything they find out about Aislinn takes her further from the glossy, passive doll she seemed to be.
Antoinette knows the harassment has turned her paranoid, but she can’t tell just how far gone she is. Is this case another step in the campaign to force her off the squad, or are there darker currents flowing beneath its polished surface?
“Atmospheric and unputdownable.” —People
In bestselling author Tana French’s newest “tour de force” (The New York Times), being on the Murder Squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she’s there. The rest of her working life is a stream of thankless cases, vicious pranks, and harassment. Antoinette is savagely tough, but she’s getting close to the breaking point.
Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers’ quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty, groomed-to-a-shine, and dead in her catalog-perfect living room, next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There’s nothing unusual about her—except that Antoinette’s seen her somewhere before.
And that her death won’t stay in its neat by-numbers box. Other detectives are trying to push Antoinette and Steve into arresting Aislinn’s boyfriend, fast. There’s a shadowy figure at the end of Antoinetteʼs road. Aislinnʼs friend is hinting that she knew Aislinn was in danger. And everything they find out about Aislinn takes her further from the glossy, passive doll she seemed to be.
Antoinette knows the harassment has turned her paranoid, but she can’t tell just how far gone she is. Is this case another step in the campaign to force her off the squad, or are there darker currents flowing beneath its polished surface?
449 pages, Hardcover
First published October 4, 2016
About the author
Tana French
23 books26.5k followersTana French is the New York Times bestselling author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, The Trespasser and The Witch Elm. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 7,937 reviews
October 15, 2016
Tana French is just fantastic.
You know, I actually have very little author loyalty. By that I mean I can easily dislike a book by an author I have previously loved, and vice versa - a second or third chance can lead to a new favourite. But at this point, I feel completely safe going into Tana French's novels. I settle down to read them with such faith in the author because she is so consistently good. For me, I don't have to wonder whether this one will be good, or that one will be good, because the author just is that good.
I loved this book. You may notice that this review is lacking in quotes, but that was another thing I picked up on while reading this: French's fantastic scenes and little pieces of dialogue are all about the context.
A certain line is snort-out-loud funny because you know the characters so well; you can just picture Detective Conway delivering it. Another scene is creepy because French has built the story up to that moment so well. And I can't quote the whole book to you... so I guess you'll just have to read it!
As always, the characterization is absolutely perfect. These characters come to life and they are complex, hilarious, stubborn and so damn likable, even when they shouldn't be. The Trespasser is told from the perspective of Antoinette Conway and anyone who read the last book knew this was going to be freaking awesome. Her narrative voice is bitchy as fuck - goddamn, her sarcasm is biting. I love her.
Her unlikable attributes become likable as French peels back the layers. I think it's great how her books are about the detectives as much - if not more than - the murder mystery. It's extremely compelling to read a thriller where you care so much about the narrator. Conway's hilarious dynamic with Steve Moran is also perfect.
I won't detail the mystery - you can read the blurb if you want and you'll find out soon enough if you read it - but I will say that TF knows exactly how to weave lots of intertwining little mysteries and surprises throughout, so even those readers who work out one reveal will be shocked by others, or at least be shocked by the hows and whys (which are the most interesting mysteries of all, right?)
The question I always get about this series is: "Do I have to read them in order?" You don't, but I think you should. Here's why. The mysteries all stand on their own and you don't need knowledge of the previous books to understand them. However, French introduces each narrator in the previous book. Just gives us a glimpse of them to pique our curiosity, and I think that's important. We see them from the outside, we wonder about them, and then we get their story. I think it works incredibly well. So that's my suggestion.
But if you want to jump straight to this book, you probably won't be disappointed either.
The Trespasser is so well plotted, the characters are memorable, the atmosphere is creepy when it suits, there's a lingering melancholy after the book ends, and I literally laughed out loud several times. What more could I want?
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You know, I actually have very little author loyalty. By that I mean I can easily dislike a book by an author I have previously loved, and vice versa - a second or third chance can lead to a new favourite. But at this point, I feel completely safe going into Tana French's novels. I settle down to read them with such faith in the author because she is so consistently good. For me, I don't have to wonder whether this one will be good, or that one will be good, because the author just is that good.
I loved this book. You may notice that this review is lacking in quotes, but that was another thing I picked up on while reading this: French's fantastic scenes and little pieces of dialogue are all about the context.
A certain line is snort-out-loud funny because you know the characters so well; you can just picture Detective Conway delivering it. Another scene is creepy because French has built the story up to that moment so well. And I can't quote the whole book to you... so I guess you'll just have to read it!
As always, the characterization is absolutely perfect. These characters come to life and they are complex, hilarious, stubborn and so damn likable, even when they shouldn't be. The Trespasser is told from the perspective of Antoinette Conway and anyone who read the last book knew this was going to be freaking awesome. Her narrative voice is bitchy as fuck - goddamn, her sarcasm is biting. I love her.
Her unlikable attributes become likable as French peels back the layers. I think it's great how her books are about the detectives as much - if not more than - the murder mystery. It's extremely compelling to read a thriller where you care so much about the narrator. Conway's hilarious dynamic with Steve Moran is also perfect.
I won't detail the mystery - you can read the blurb if you want and you'll find out soon enough if you read it - but I will say that TF knows exactly how to weave lots of intertwining little mysteries and surprises throughout, so even those readers who work out one reveal will be shocked by others, or at least be shocked by the hows and whys (which are the most interesting mysteries of all, right?)
The question I always get about this series is: "Do I have to read them in order?" You don't, but I think you should. Here's why. The mysteries all stand on their own and you don't need knowledge of the previous books to understand them. However, French introduces each narrator in the previous book. Just gives us a glimpse of them to pique our curiosity, and I think that's important. We see them from the outside, we wonder about them, and then we get their story. I think it works incredibly well. So that's my suggestion.
But if you want to jump straight to this book, you probably won't be disappointed either.
The Trespasser is so well plotted, the characters are memorable, the atmosphere is creepy when it suits, there's a lingering melancholy after the book ends, and I literally laughed out loud several times. What more could I want?
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June 20, 2018
congratulations! semifinalist in goodreads' best mystery/thriller category 2016!
my (very one-sided) love affair with tana french continues. to me, each book in this (loosely connected) series has been better than the one before. however, The Secret Place was a little bit of a hiccup for me in terms of this oft-expressed declaration. it was definitely not better than Broken Harbor (which might be my all-time favorite) - the teenspeak got to me a bit and but that element kind of threw me for a loop and i didn't think it was successful. however, with this book, she is back in full force, and i'm more smitten than ever.
what's so great about her is that she is proficient - nay, masterful - at every aspect of her craft so it looks good from every angle and there's literally something for everyone. there's an intriguing central puzzle for the mystery fans, her characters are original and deeply constructed for the literary fiction fans, she is excellent at controlling the pacing so it's neither too slow for a beach read nor too zippy if you want to become deeply immersed in a plot, it's spooky and suspenseful and smart and so, so funny.
and her descriptions? it's like being there with all your senses engaged
In the Castle grounds the street lamps are still on, but the city is lightening, barely, into something sort of like morning. It's not raining - which is good: somewhere across the river there could be shoe prints waiting for us, or cigarette butts with DNA on them - but it's freezing and damp, a fine haze haloing the lamps, the kind of damp that soaks in and settles till you feel like your bones are colder than the air around you. The early cafes are opening; the air smells of frying sausages and bus fumes.
there's nothing phoned-in to her books, not ever - she always delivers the most satisfyingly chewy reading experiences.
and she's outdone herself with her central character this time. we met detective conway in The Secret Place, and we all loved her brash, no-nonsense toughness. and now that she's teamed up with detective stephen moran (of both 'place' novels - faithful and secret), it's just the best gooey icing. these two are perfect working partners - they get each other and they click in that perfect complementary sherlock-and-watson way, playing to each others' strengths and attuned to each others' body language and thought processes despite seeming, on the surface, to be complete opposites: moran is easygoing and affable and gets along with everyone, while conway… well, she's been having a rough time ever since she transferred from missing persons to the murder squad. part of it is her being the only woman, part is her vague ethnicity (she never knew her father, but he was evidently on the darker side of the skin-tone spectrum), and part of it is her standoffish attitude. it's a chicken-egg situation - she's been the victim of cruel pranks, shut out from cases, subjected to sexist and racist remarks, and had her own cases actively sabotaged, but it's unclear whether her treatment from the boys' club murder squad is a response to her "fuck off" attitude or its cause. in any event, it has created a toxic working environment where the only ally she has is her partner, and she has to work twice as hard as everyone else - investigating murders while also making sure she remembers to bring her coffee with her when she leaves the room in case she comes back to find someone has spit in it. this additional layer of wariness has taken its toll on her already-cranky personality, with all that unnecessary stress and doubt and apprehension clouding her judgment.
Two years of watching my back, watching every step and every word, in fight mode all day every day: my instincts are fried to smoking wisps.
and for a detective, instinct is the most important sense.
so when she and moran are handed what appears to be a clear-cut case of a lover's fight turned deadly, but which becomes murkier and murkier the more they uncover, and when certain members of their squad seem overly involved with the investigation; steering them towards certain angles and away from others, it doesn't take long for conway's justifiable suspicion of everyone to turn into a more emphatic paranoia.
the tension is built perfectly - since we are seeing everything through conway's perspective, we're always right there with her - second-guessing what's really going on; what's a trap, what's a too-easy solution, when the other shoe is going to drop. it is a very intense and claustrophobic experience.
it takes a special kind of narrator to be angry at so many different things at once -
how do you not fall in love with her?
hers is an incandescent, bitingly-expressed brand of anger, in which everyone except moran is a target at some point. but man does she hate rory, the wishy-washy "nice guy" main suspect in his girlfriend aislinn's murder, and his cowering, floppy-haired meekness.
I'm amazed this guy manages to get out of bed in the morning without working himself into a panic attack over the chance that he might trip on the bath mat and stab himself through the eye socket with his toothbrush and be left with a permanent twitch that'll ruin his chances of landing an airplane safely if the pilot has a heart attack and doom hundreds to a fiery death.
which is ironic, in a way. conway detests dreamy people; an attribute both the victim and suspect share.
What-if-maybe crap is for weak people. It belongs to the ones who don't have the strength to make actual situations go their way, so they have to hide away in daydreams where they can play at controlling what comes next. And that makes them even weaker.
but we're usually the most disgusted by those weaknesses of others that reflect our own weaknesses and insecurities. conway is anything but weak, but the particulars of her position in the squad have made her susceptible to the very same "daydreams" - in her case, speculations and paranoia rather than slappy-happy fantasies - as rory. she doesn't clock the parallel herself, but it's there - it's a current underneath everything she does, putting up her guard, making sure her notes are locked up and her browser cleared - always anticipating an attack, which is the darker side of the "what-if-maybe" impulse.
as with all her novels, tana french shines in the way she understands and portrays the innerworkings of the justice system - the way crimes are investigated, the hierarchies within the various divisions, the relationships between detectives and their informants and the press, the slippery nature of undercover work, and her meticulous detailing of the process of everything from interviewing witnesses to paperwork, somehow making it fascinating and also surprising, even to people who have watched wayyyy too many crime dramas in their lifetimes.
this kind of detailing is a very smart method of adding depth to characterization through a backdoor, without having to go full-on exposition, and it's another example of how she's so damn good at what she does. in descriptions like this, we get unexpected insight into conway, who has left the missing persons squad behind for the bigger flash of murder, despite what it is costing her, psychologically:
Missing Persons isn't like Murder. In Missing Persons, you don't work your case aiming to take down a bad guy; you work it aiming to get a happy ending. If it even looks like there might be a bad guy to take down, mostly it's not your problem any more - say a body shows up looking dodgy, you hand it straight over to Murder. You can go your entire career without ever using your handcuffs. That attracts a whole different type from Murder or Sex Crime, the squads where your mind is focused on the kill shot and happy endings aren't on the menu, and it makes for a whole different atmosphere.
there is a scene in which conway has to contact her old boss from missing persons and it's just so powerfully bittersweet a moment - it hits the reader with the full force of the professional, respectful environment she's left behind, where she was valued, to drag herself into a horrible atmosphere every day; knowing she's more suited to the work, even if she's not getting the credit she deserves, which knowledge is no comfort at all.
a final word on partnership. seriously - conway and moran are perfection together. and despite her feelings on what-if-maybes, conway does get a little starry-eyed over stephen. not romantically, thank god, but in her own distinctive way:
Once or twice - more - I caught myself daydreaming like a sappy teenager about our future together: about someday when we would get the decent cases, the genius plans we'd dream up to trap the cunning psychos, the interrogations that would go down in squad history.
that's the apogee of infatuation for our dear antoinette conway.
and it's perfect.
i'm a little sad that i know how unlikely it is that we'll ever get another conway-driven novel from tana french, considering her MO of mixing up narrators with each book. she was so appealing to me, and the whole trajectory of this book, being immersed in an escalating sense of dread and feeling increasingly unmoored and suspicious of everyone was exhilarating and exhausting all at once. i loved every minute of it.
a must-read, people.
thanks a million to anmiryam.
****************************************
thank goodness for book angels!!!
review to come
****************************************
ohhhh book angels!! please shower me with blessings!! blessings shaped like this book!
come to my blog!
my (very one-sided) love affair with tana french continues. to me, each book in this (loosely connected) series has been better than the one before. however, The Secret Place was a little bit of a hiccup for me in terms of this oft-expressed declaration. it was definitely not better than Broken Harbor (which might be my all-time favorite) - the teenspeak got to me a bit and but that element kind of threw me for a loop and i didn't think it was successful. however, with this book, she is back in full force, and i'm more smitten than ever.
what's so great about her is that she is proficient - nay, masterful - at every aspect of her craft so it looks good from every angle and there's literally something for everyone. there's an intriguing central puzzle for the mystery fans, her characters are original and deeply constructed for the literary fiction fans, she is excellent at controlling the pacing so it's neither too slow for a beach read nor too zippy if you want to become deeply immersed in a plot, it's spooky and suspenseful and smart and so, so funny.
and her descriptions? it's like being there with all your senses engaged
In the Castle grounds the street lamps are still on, but the city is lightening, barely, into something sort of like morning. It's not raining - which is good: somewhere across the river there could be shoe prints waiting for us, or cigarette butts with DNA on them - but it's freezing and damp, a fine haze haloing the lamps, the kind of damp that soaks in and settles till you feel like your bones are colder than the air around you. The early cafes are opening; the air smells of frying sausages and bus fumes.
there's nothing phoned-in to her books, not ever - she always delivers the most satisfyingly chewy reading experiences.
and she's outdone herself with her central character this time. we met detective conway in The Secret Place, and we all loved her brash, no-nonsense toughness. and now that she's teamed up with detective stephen moran (of both 'place' novels - faithful and secret), it's just the best gooey icing. these two are perfect working partners - they get each other and they click in that perfect complementary sherlock-and-watson way, playing to each others' strengths and attuned to each others' body language and thought processes despite seeming, on the surface, to be complete opposites: moran is easygoing and affable and gets along with everyone, while conway… well, she's been having a rough time ever since she transferred from missing persons to the murder squad. part of it is her being the only woman, part is her vague ethnicity (she never knew her father, but he was evidently on the darker side of the skin-tone spectrum), and part of it is her standoffish attitude. it's a chicken-egg situation - she's been the victim of cruel pranks, shut out from cases, subjected to sexist and racist remarks, and had her own cases actively sabotaged, but it's unclear whether her treatment from the boys' club murder squad is a response to her "fuck off" attitude or its cause. in any event, it has created a toxic working environment where the only ally she has is her partner, and she has to work twice as hard as everyone else - investigating murders while also making sure she remembers to bring her coffee with her when she leaves the room in case she comes back to find someone has spit in it. this additional layer of wariness has taken its toll on her already-cranky personality, with all that unnecessary stress and doubt and apprehension clouding her judgment.
Two years of watching my back, watching every step and every word, in fight mode all day every day: my instincts are fried to smoking wisps.
and for a detective, instinct is the most important sense.
so when she and moran are handed what appears to be a clear-cut case of a lover's fight turned deadly, but which becomes murkier and murkier the more they uncover, and when certain members of their squad seem overly involved with the investigation; steering them towards certain angles and away from others, it doesn't take long for conway's justifiable suspicion of everyone to turn into a more emphatic paranoia.
the tension is built perfectly - since we are seeing everything through conway's perspective, we're always right there with her - second-guessing what's really going on; what's a trap, what's a too-easy solution, when the other shoe is going to drop. it is a very intense and claustrophobic experience.
it takes a special kind of narrator to be angry at so many different things at once -
Domestics are mostly slam-dunks; the question isn't whether you can arrest your guy, or girl, it's whether you can build a case that'll hold up in court. A lot of people love that - it pretties up your solve rate, looks good to the brass - but not me: it means domestics get you fuck-all respect from the squad, where I could do with it, because everyone knows the solve came easy. Which is also the other reason they piss me off: they've got a whole special level of idiotic all to themselves. You take out your wife or your husband or your Shag of the Day, what the fuck do you think is gonna happen? We're gonna be standing there with our mouths open, scratching our heads at the mind-blowing mystery of it all, Duh, I dunno, musta been the Mafia? Surprise: we're gonna go straight for you, the evidence is gonna pile up way over your head, and you're gonna wind up with a life sentence. If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world.
how do you not fall in love with her?
hers is an incandescent, bitingly-expressed brand of anger, in which everyone except moran is a target at some point. but man does she hate rory, the wishy-washy "nice guy" main suspect in his girlfriend aislinn's murder, and his cowering, floppy-haired meekness.
I'm amazed this guy manages to get out of bed in the morning without working himself into a panic attack over the chance that he might trip on the bath mat and stab himself through the eye socket with his toothbrush and be left with a permanent twitch that'll ruin his chances of landing an airplane safely if the pilot has a heart attack and doom hundreds to a fiery death.
which is ironic, in a way. conway detests dreamy people; an attribute both the victim and suspect share.
What-if-maybe crap is for weak people. It belongs to the ones who don't have the strength to make actual situations go their way, so they have to hide away in daydreams where they can play at controlling what comes next. And that makes them even weaker.
but we're usually the most disgusted by those weaknesses of others that reflect our own weaknesses and insecurities. conway is anything but weak, but the particulars of her position in the squad have made her susceptible to the very same "daydreams" - in her case, speculations and paranoia rather than slappy-happy fantasies - as rory. she doesn't clock the parallel herself, but it's there - it's a current underneath everything she does, putting up her guard, making sure her notes are locked up and her browser cleared - always anticipating an attack, which is the darker side of the "what-if-maybe" impulse.
as with all her novels, tana french shines in the way she understands and portrays the innerworkings of the justice system - the way crimes are investigated, the hierarchies within the various divisions, the relationships between detectives and their informants and the press, the slippery nature of undercover work, and her meticulous detailing of the process of everything from interviewing witnesses to paperwork, somehow making it fascinating and also surprising, even to people who have watched wayyyy too many crime dramas in their lifetimes.
this kind of detailing is a very smart method of adding depth to characterization through a backdoor, without having to go full-on exposition, and it's another example of how she's so damn good at what she does. in descriptions like this, we get unexpected insight into conway, who has left the missing persons squad behind for the bigger flash of murder, despite what it is costing her, psychologically:
Missing Persons isn't like Murder. In Missing Persons, you don't work your case aiming to take down a bad guy; you work it aiming to get a happy ending. If it even looks like there might be a bad guy to take down, mostly it's not your problem any more - say a body shows up looking dodgy, you hand it straight over to Murder. You can go your entire career without ever using your handcuffs. That attracts a whole different type from Murder or Sex Crime, the squads where your mind is focused on the kill shot and happy endings aren't on the menu, and it makes for a whole different atmosphere.
there is a scene in which conway has to contact her old boss from missing persons and it's just so powerfully bittersweet a moment - it hits the reader with the full force of the professional, respectful environment she's left behind, where she was valued, to drag herself into a horrible atmosphere every day; knowing she's more suited to the work, even if she's not getting the credit she deserves, which knowledge is no comfort at all.
a final word on partnership. seriously - conway and moran are perfection together. and despite her feelings on what-if-maybes, conway does get a little starry-eyed over stephen. not romantically, thank god, but in her own distinctive way:
Once or twice - more - I caught myself daydreaming like a sappy teenager about our future together: about someday when we would get the decent cases, the genius plans we'd dream up to trap the cunning psychos, the interrogations that would go down in squad history.
that's the apogee of infatuation for our dear antoinette conway.
and it's perfect.
i'm a little sad that i know how unlikely it is that we'll ever get another conway-driven novel from tana french, considering her MO of mixing up narrators with each book. she was so appealing to me, and the whole trajectory of this book, being immersed in an escalating sense of dread and feeling increasingly unmoored and suspicious of everyone was exhilarating and exhausting all at once. i loved every minute of it.
a must-read, people.
thanks a million to anmiryam.
****************************************
thank goodness for book angels!!!
review to come
****************************************
ohhhh book angels!! please shower me with blessings!! blessings shaped like this book!
come to my blog!
December 9, 2023
There are books I rely on to get me through tough spots in life. When things get to be too much, when nerves are strung so tight that they are about to snap, when exhausted cynicism threatens to take over and it feels that the world is ready to punch and bite, and the mind runs in tighter and tighter circles and it feels like you are your own worst enemy. You know, those thorny spots in life when you need something to shake you out of it and bring some color to the greyness of the day.
The Trespasser is one of those books for me. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve listened to the wonderful audio version that makes my inner voice speak with Irish accent for days and days. It’s certainly my favorite Tana French book, probably the only one of hers that does not shred your heart mercilessly until there’s nothing left. It’s a book of gruffly sarcasm and angry resentment that culminates with such cautious bittersweet hope that even the most tightly wound can finally unclench.
Antoinette Conway, a detective on the fictional Dublin Murder Squad, is having a tough time. She has reached the end of her metaphorical rope. Tough and whip-smart and cynical to the core, she has no illusions about her job or life. She knows she’s hated and an outcast, and is one bad case away from complete ostracism. She has been “having trouble coming off orange alert lately,” and she knows it’s about to bite her where it hurts. A confident woman on the all-male squad, refusing to play by the rules, abrasive and rough around the edges, coming from the wrong side of the tracks, she is expecting that even a smallest misstep would be enough to force her off the squad, and she is prepared to take the first step and blow this popsicle stand. No wonder she lives on the aggressive defensive.
She is obviously suffering from a severe case of job burnout, and sees no happy way out. So when the murder case comes in, “on a frozen dawn in the kind of closed-down January that makes you think the sun’s never going to drag itself back above the horizon,” she is prepared to wrap it up quickly and make her exit without admitting defeat.
Except that the case turns out to be more complicated than first thought. It’s more than your “bog-standard domestic”, a much-too-common “boy beats girl” story. Something smells rotten about the case, and the rot may just extend all the way to her own (much-hated) squad.
The only ray of sunshine - perhaps - is Conway’s partner Steve Moran, a happy-go-lucky people pleaser (the slightly darker side of whom we saw in the previous book, The Secret Place, where Conway-Moran partnership got its initially rocky start) who may be the only person holding Conway back from the metaphorical edge. “Steve feels like a friend, or something on the edge of it. But we’re still getting the hang of each other; we still have no guarantees.” He’s like a brother to Antoinette (and very refreshingly, never becomes a romantic interest, thanks to French for small favors!). The friendship is so genuine that even in its most fragile moments you know that Steve and Antoinette need each other.
It’s a book that hinges on feeling as an outsider, a wronged one, one who (seemingly) refuses to crave belonging and acceptance. It’s a book with brash attitude crossed with pained and reluctantly emphatic feelings. And it is a book that allows for a deeper look into your own self, confronting your flaws and suspicions and convictions and faults while learning that sometimes you and the rest of the world don’t have to be on the opposite warring sides.
—————
I fragging love Antoinette Conway and Steve Moran.
Conway for her non-nonsense jaded cop attitude and the no-fucks-given personality. I love how her sarcastic abrasiveness fails to hide a decent person underneath, the one who will do the right thing even - or especially when - it’s not easy. Even if she’s going to bitch and moan about it, with snarky and yet quite true observations about people, despite her hard unlikeable facade. She’s angry and good and infuriating and so real, and a perfect narrator voice for this book.
And honestly, all the characterization is just perfect, in that trademark French way that puts other authors to shame. So well-drawn, complex, lifelike. Every persona, every scene, every sentence is crafted so precisely and perfectly that there nothing left but well-deserved admiration at what this emotional wringer does to your very soul, how it gets into your head and heart and refuses to leave.
And the murder case itself is done so well. The point is NOT as much the “whodunit” - that you can figure out yourself at a reasonable point in the book, without reliance on “twists” that are becoming all so popular - but “whydunit” and the ripples that people and their actions cause in each other’s lives, and the power of stories that we choose to tell ourselves, and the allure of being a protagonist in your own story and playing your carefully crafted part, and the devastation when life and expectations collide.
It’s the sixth entry in the Dublin Murder Squad series, but since those books are only loosely linked by a few shared characters, it can be read as a standalone, with no prior familiarity with the series. It stands completely on its own merit and is a perfect introduction to Tana French’s excellent writing.
And really, it’s perfect. You can tell me otherwise, but I promise to ignore any voices to the contrary, and instead lose myself in the world of Dublin Murder Squad and Conway-Moran partnership for many more hours, loving every minute of those hours, feeling anger dissipate and cautious hope enter my bitter sarcastic heart. It got me through a few crappy times in life, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.
5 stars. Perfect. Just perfect. Love it.
——————
My reviews of the rest of Tana French's books can be found here:
In The Woods.
The Likeness.
Faithful Place.
Broken Harbour.
The Secret Place.
The Trespasser is one of those books for me. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve listened to the wonderful audio version that makes my inner voice speak with Irish accent for days and days. It’s certainly my favorite Tana French book, probably the only one of hers that does not shred your heart mercilessly until there’s nothing left. It’s a book of gruffly sarcasm and angry resentment that culminates with such cautious bittersweet hope that even the most tightly wound can finally unclench.
“I live inside my own skin. Anything that happens outside it doesn't change who I am. This isn't something I'm proud of; as far as I'm concerned, it's a bare minimum baseline requirement for calling yourself an adult human being, somewhere around the level of knowing how to do your own washing or change a toilet roll. All those idiots on the websites, begging for other people to pull their sagging puppet-strings, turn them real: they make me want to spit.”
Antoinette Conway, a detective on the fictional Dublin Murder Squad, is having a tough time. She has reached the end of her metaphorical rope. Tough and whip-smart and cynical to the core, she has no illusions about her job or life. She knows she’s hated and an outcast, and is one bad case away from complete ostracism. She has been “having trouble coming off orange alert lately,” and she knows it’s about to bite her where it hurts. A confident woman on the all-male squad, refusing to play by the rules, abrasive and rough around the edges, coming from the wrong side of the tracks, she is expecting that even a smallest misstep would be enough to force her off the squad, and she is prepared to take the first step and blow this popsicle stand. No wonder she lives on the aggressive defensive.
“In any squad, people last a lot longer than two years. My two years have been special. The cases aren’t a problem—I could take back-to-back cannibals and kid-killers, never miss a wink of sleep. Like I said, you can beat one killer. Beating your own squad is a whole other thing.”
“Two years of watching my back, watching every step and every word, in fight mode all day every day: my instincts are fried to smoking wisps.”
She is obviously suffering from a severe case of job burnout, and sees no happy way out. So when the murder case comes in, “on a frozen dawn in the kind of closed-down January that makes you think the sun’s never going to drag itself back above the horizon,” she is prepared to wrap it up quickly and make her exit without admitting defeat.
“I didn’t use to be like this. I’ve always had a temper on me, but I’ve always kept it under control, no matter how hard I had to bite down. Even when I was a kid, I knew how to hold it loaded and cocked while I got my target in range, lined up my sights and picked my moment to blow the bastard away. Since I made Murder, that’s been changing—slowly, I never lose a lot of ground at once, but I never gain any back, and it’s starting to show. The last few months, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve caught myself in the half-second before I splattered temper everywhere and stuck myself cleaning up the mess for the rest of my life. I wasn’t kidding about telling that witness he was too stupid to live: my mouth was opening to do it, when Steve came in with some soothing question. I know, dead certain, that someday soon neither of us is gonna catch me in time.
And I know, dead certain, that the rest of the squad is gonna be on that moment like sharks on chum.”
Except that the case turns out to be more complicated than first thought. It’s more than your “bog-standard domestic”, a much-too-common “boy beats girl” story. Something smells rotten about the case, and the rot may just extend all the way to her own (much-hated) squad.
The only ray of sunshine - perhaps - is Conway’s partner Steve Moran, a happy-go-lucky people pleaser (the slightly darker side of whom we saw in the previous book, The Secret Place, where Conway-Moran partnership got its initially rocky start) who may be the only person holding Conway back from the metaphorical edge. “Steve feels like a friend, or something on the edge of it. But we’re still getting the hang of each other; we still have no guarantees.” He’s like a brother to Antoinette (and very refreshingly, never becomes a romantic interest, thanks to French for small favors!). The friendship is so genuine that even in its most fragile moments you know that Steve and Antoinette need each other.
“It’s not that Steve has no ego—all Ds do—just that his isn’t tied to being Mr. Big Balls all the time. It’s tied to getting stuff done, which is good, and to people liking him, which comes in useful and which I watch like hell.”
It’s a book that hinges on feeling as an outsider, a wronged one, one who (seemingly) refuses to crave belonging and acceptance. It’s a book with brash attitude crossed with pained and reluctantly emphatic feelings. And it is a book that allows for a deeper look into your own self, confronting your flaws and suspicions and convictions and faults while learning that sometimes you and the rest of the world don’t have to be on the opposite warring sides.
—————
I fragging love Antoinette Conway and Steve Moran.
Conway for her non-nonsense jaded cop attitude and the no-fucks-given personality. I love how her sarcastic abrasiveness fails to hide a decent person underneath, the one who will do the right thing even - or especially when - it’s not easy. Even if she’s going to bitch and moan about it, with snarky and yet quite true observations about people, despite her hard unlikeable facade. She’s angry and good and infuriating and so real, and a perfect narrator voice for this book.
“You take out your wife or your husband or your Shag of the Day, what the fuck do you think is gonna happen? We’re gonna be standing there with our mouths open, scratching our heads at the mind-blowing mystery of it all, Duh, I dunno, musta been the Mafia?”I love Steve for his faith in humanity, optimism, and unfailing dedication to friendship. I love how his loyalty and trust are in the right place. I love his self-deprecation and humor and decency. And I love the friendship strong enough where no words need to be said for perfect understanding.
“Ah, background checks,' I say. 'The foundation of every beautiful romance.”
“We sit there, drinking, while the stuff we should probably be saying out loud get itself done in the silence.”
And honestly, all the characterization is just perfect, in that trademark French way that puts other authors to shame. So well-drawn, complex, lifelike. Every persona, every scene, every sentence is crafted so precisely and perfectly that there nothing left but well-deserved admiration at what this emotional wringer does to your very soul, how it gets into your head and heart and refuses to leave.
And the murder case itself is done so well. The point is NOT as much the “whodunit” - that you can figure out yourself at a reasonable point in the book, without reliance on “twists” that are becoming all so popular - but “whydunit” and the ripples that people and their actions cause in each other’s lives, and the power of stories that we choose to tell ourselves, and the allure of being a protagonist in your own story and playing your carefully crafted part, and the devastation when life and expectations collide.
“They make me edgy. Dozens and dozens of people, they just keep coming, and every single one of their heads is crammed with stories they believe and stories they want to believe and stories someone else has made them believe, and every story is battering against the thin walls of the person’s skull, drilling and gnawing for its chance to escape and attack someone else, bore its way in and feed off that mind too.”
It’s the sixth entry in the Dublin Murder Squad series, but since those books are only loosely linked by a few shared characters, it can be read as a standalone, with no prior familiarity with the series. It stands completely on its own merit and is a perfect introduction to Tana French’s excellent writing.
And really, it’s perfect. You can tell me otherwise, but I promise to ignore any voices to the contrary, and instead lose myself in the world of Dublin Murder Squad and Conway-Moran partnership for many more hours, loving every minute of those hours, feeling anger dissipate and cautious hope enter my bitter sarcastic heart. It got me through a few crappy times in life, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.
“I take one more look up at the rest of my life, waiting for me inside those neat sturdy squares of gold light. Then we start off across the courtyard, arguing, to get a few pints and a few hours’ kip before it’s time to head back and find out what’s in there.”
5 stars. Perfect. Just perfect. Love it.
——————
My reviews of the rest of Tana French's books can be found here:
In The Woods.
The Likeness.
Faithful Place.
Broken Harbour.
The Secret Place.
March 23, 2017
What does a star rating mean? Does it mean this is a work of greatness, that deserves to be read by every generation? That each word is empathetically chosen,* each sentence crafted, each paragraph placed with an eye to flow? That through metaphor, symbolism and theme it exposes the reader to some kind of truth? That it inspires a passionate response? That at this moment, I loved it? That it made me happy?
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many stars I give The Trespasser. It wrung me out like a three-day fight, playing me like an old lover, an old enemy, hinting in exactly the right ways, saying the right words, pausing at the best movement, to achieve their ends. I found myself reading every word, but forcing myself to occasionally pause, to ~breathe~ to consciously unclench the tense muscles in my neck and arms. I found myself becoming generally, non-specifically angry, just like Antionette striding through the squad room, defensive, irritable, ready to lash out at annoyances. Did I enjoy the experience? Not particularly. It was not pleasurable to be in such an angry person's head. Was I able to break free? Not particularly. Common sense was able kick in, three hours into reading and only an hour or two to go before bed. I knew there was no way on earth I'd be able to sleep with rage like that simmering below the the surface.
Does evoking strong emotion make it a good book?
The second evening I read, I had more time, a little less anxiety; I knew I'd be finishing far before bed. And I might of peeked at the ending, because French is one of the authors I can't quite trust; she plays by different authorial rules. I haven't forgotten her first book, In the Woods.
Does unpredictability make it a good book?
I did notice--as I often do in a French book--that I stuttered on her mechanisms, the details of her plotting. I realized--even as I read it--that a particular device was used to allow the plot to go the direction it did. It felt a little obvious, maybe even a little cheap, but like the old, old lover/friend/enemy who knows where each button is and how to best employ it, it didn't matter. I still finished the story exhausted, relieved, drained.
Does obvious make it a bad book? Less good? I can't even think answer these questions of scale. What am I comparing it to? The greatest books that exist? French's best work? That paint-by-numbers mystery I read last week and said I 'liked'? The words 'like,' 'love,' seem ridiculously weak. Did it pull me out of the world, move me to black and blue, into a night-long, bleary-eyed wheel of emotion?
All the stars.
*You can assume all italicized words are said with emphasis, hand-waving drama and occasionally some irritable sarcasm. Sometimes the hand-waving may come close to the side of your head if you are especially obstinate.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many stars I give The Trespasser. It wrung me out like a three-day fight, playing me like an old lover, an old enemy, hinting in exactly the right ways, saying the right words, pausing at the best movement, to achieve their ends. I found myself reading every word, but forcing myself to occasionally pause, to ~breathe~ to consciously unclench the tense muscles in my neck and arms. I found myself becoming generally, non-specifically angry, just like Antionette striding through the squad room, defensive, irritable, ready to lash out at annoyances. Did I enjoy the experience? Not particularly. It was not pleasurable to be in such an angry person's head. Was I able to break free? Not particularly. Common sense was able kick in, three hours into reading and only an hour or two to go before bed. I knew there was no way on earth I'd be able to sleep with rage like that simmering below the the surface.
Does evoking strong emotion make it a good book?
The second evening I read, I had more time, a little less anxiety; I knew I'd be finishing far before bed. And I might of peeked at the ending, because French is one of the authors I can't quite trust; she plays by different authorial rules. I haven't forgotten her first book, In the Woods.
Does unpredictability make it a good book?
I did notice--as I often do in a French book--that I stuttered on her mechanisms, the details of her plotting. I realized--even as I read it--that a particular device was used to allow the plot to go the direction it did. It felt a little obvious, maybe even a little cheap, but like the old, old lover/friend/enemy who knows where each button is and how to best employ it, it didn't matter. I still finished the story exhausted, relieved, drained.
Does obvious make it a bad book? Less good? I can't even think answer these questions of scale. What am I comparing it to? The greatest books that exist? French's best work? That paint-by-numbers mystery I read last week and said I 'liked'? The words 'like,' 'love,' seem ridiculously weak. Did it pull me out of the world, move me to black and blue, into a night-long, bleary-eyed wheel of emotion?
All the stars.
*You can assume all italicized words are said with emphasis, hand-waving drama and occasionally some irritable sarcasm. Sometimes the hand-waving may come close to the side of your head if you are especially obstinate.
August 23, 2018
So pleased with my reread of this one! I definitely appreciated it more the second time around, and it satiated my police procedural need for the moment. I'm left wondering if she'll come back to the series; based on the ending of this one it could go either way, but I'm unsure who the focus would be on moving forward... All in all, another fab read from Tana French!
November 3, 2016
The Trespasser by Tana French is a 2016 Viking publication.
Sophisticated, breathlessly paced, and absolutely riveting!
Antoinette Conway and her partner Steve Moran are tossed a case involving a young woman named Aislinn, whose body was found after a punch to the face caused her to fall and hit her head, killing her.
Initially believing they’ve been assigned yet another routine case, they soon find themselves burdened with another, more seasoned detective, called in to help them work the case.
If that weren’t frustrating enough, they are also hounded by dirty journalist who will stop at nothing to get the lowdown on their case.
As the pair begin to investigate, Aislinn’s boyfriend, Rory, soon becomes their prime suspect. However, Conway and Moran have a few alternate theories, they are batting around and want to hold off on arresting ‘lover boy’, to see what falls to earth after they ‘shake a few trees.’
However, the murder squad seems to be in an all fired hurry to lock Rory up and throw away the key, which raises Conway’s suspicions, but then again, she is normally suspicious and paranoid, due to the chronic harassment she is subjected to.
The only way to survive this will be to get the case solved and find out why the brass is so keen on pinning the murder on Rory, but with Rory falling right into their hands, and the powers that be riding their tale and playing psychological games, it will take all the interrogating skills Conway has in her whole body to uncover the truth.
When I read ‘In the Woods’ I became an instant fan of Tana French. I had never encountered a crime novel written with such a profound literary prose. From that point on, I couldn’t wait for the next book in the series to come out. Every single one has been amazing, except maybe for ‘The Secret Place’, which ironically, also features Conway and Moran. While, still a very solid novel, it didn’t have that same pull as previous installments and I admit I had a sliver of concern about that, but this latest installment in the Dublin Murder Squad series immediately erased all those doubts.
The plot is tightly woven and tense, with some of the best interrogation scenes I’ve encountered in crime fiction. I think the partnership between Conway and Moran is interesting and they seem to have a certain uneasy chemistry between them, that adds an element of tension and sizzle to the story.
" We sit there, drinking, while the stuff we should probably be saying out loud get itself done in the silence."
Conway’s internal monologues are dark and edgy, the dialogue is razor sharp, as Conway’s paranoia literally leaps off the page, but she is also darkly humorous at times, and I came away with a few chuckles and some terrific phrases and colorful metaphors to try out.
" It was about the same thing as everything else humans have done to to each other since before history began: power. It was about deciding who would be the alpha dogs and who would be at the bottom of the pile."
The pacing is one of the biggest assets in this novel, which was little longer than most thrillers, but trust me, that is a good thing! The way French baited me in, time and again, toyed with my mind, slowly luring me in, until I eventually I finally took the bait – hook, line and sinker, was like a cat and mouse game between author and reader.
The characters are so well drawn, and are given ample time to flourish, to think things out, as the case is worked like a true procedural with lots of interviews and leg work, plus the added pressure of abnormal office politics, which we all know plays a big part in police work, with everyone jockeying for position or trying to cover their own butt.
I absolutely loved this book and rank it right up there with the first novel, which has remained my personal favorite. I love gritty, hard as nails characters and deep, twisty plots, with a climactic ending in which the irony is just divine. Simply amazing!!
After reading a Tana French novel I always feel like I’ve ingested a highly addictive drug because I immediately begin to feel withdrawal symptoms. French does not chuck out novels at the speed of light and sound, so the wait times in between releases can feel like an eternity, so be sure to enjoy and slowly savor every last drop of this novel… I know I did!!
Sophisticated, breathlessly paced, and absolutely riveting!
Antoinette Conway and her partner Steve Moran are tossed a case involving a young woman named Aislinn, whose body was found after a punch to the face caused her to fall and hit her head, killing her.
Initially believing they’ve been assigned yet another routine case, they soon find themselves burdened with another, more seasoned detective, called in to help them work the case.
If that weren’t frustrating enough, they are also hounded by dirty journalist who will stop at nothing to get the lowdown on their case.
As the pair begin to investigate, Aislinn’s boyfriend, Rory, soon becomes their prime suspect. However, Conway and Moran have a few alternate theories, they are batting around and want to hold off on arresting ‘lover boy’, to see what falls to earth after they ‘shake a few trees.’
However, the murder squad seems to be in an all fired hurry to lock Rory up and throw away the key, which raises Conway’s suspicions, but then again, she is normally suspicious and paranoid, due to the chronic harassment she is subjected to.
The only way to survive this will be to get the case solved and find out why the brass is so keen on pinning the murder on Rory, but with Rory falling right into their hands, and the powers that be riding their tale and playing psychological games, it will take all the interrogating skills Conway has in her whole body to uncover the truth.
When I read ‘In the Woods’ I became an instant fan of Tana French. I had never encountered a crime novel written with such a profound literary prose. From that point on, I couldn’t wait for the next book in the series to come out. Every single one has been amazing, except maybe for ‘The Secret Place’, which ironically, also features Conway and Moran. While, still a very solid novel, it didn’t have that same pull as previous installments and I admit I had a sliver of concern about that, but this latest installment in the Dublin Murder Squad series immediately erased all those doubts.
The plot is tightly woven and tense, with some of the best interrogation scenes I’ve encountered in crime fiction. I think the partnership between Conway and Moran is interesting and they seem to have a certain uneasy chemistry between them, that adds an element of tension and sizzle to the story.
" We sit there, drinking, while the stuff we should probably be saying out loud get itself done in the silence."
Conway’s internal monologues are dark and edgy, the dialogue is razor sharp, as Conway’s paranoia literally leaps off the page, but she is also darkly humorous at times, and I came away with a few chuckles and some terrific phrases and colorful metaphors to try out.
" It was about the same thing as everything else humans have done to to each other since before history began: power. It was about deciding who would be the alpha dogs and who would be at the bottom of the pile."
The pacing is one of the biggest assets in this novel, which was little longer than most thrillers, but trust me, that is a good thing! The way French baited me in, time and again, toyed with my mind, slowly luring me in, until I eventually I finally took the bait – hook, line and sinker, was like a cat and mouse game between author and reader.
The characters are so well drawn, and are given ample time to flourish, to think things out, as the case is worked like a true procedural with lots of interviews and leg work, plus the added pressure of abnormal office politics, which we all know plays a big part in police work, with everyone jockeying for position or trying to cover their own butt.
I absolutely loved this book and rank it right up there with the first novel, which has remained my personal favorite. I love gritty, hard as nails characters and deep, twisty plots, with a climactic ending in which the irony is just divine. Simply amazing!!
After reading a Tana French novel I always feel like I’ve ingested a highly addictive drug because I immediately begin to feel withdrawal symptoms. French does not chuck out novels at the speed of light and sound, so the wait times in between releases can feel like an eternity, so be sure to enjoy and slowly savor every last drop of this novel… I know I did!!
May 16, 2019
While my February binge-read of Tana French has reached its end, these mysteries remain some of the best novels I have read in a long while. They pull key aspects of police procedurals with a dash of Irish charm and leave the reader with a sense of completion, after a drawn-out story and systematic solution. Picking up a few months after The Secret Place, French turns the focus onto Detective Antoinette Conway, who came from a single-parent home and whose mixed-race background left her feeling out of place. Working the night shift with partner Stephen Moran, Conway joins him as they investigate an apparent domestic disturbance gone wrong. As they arrive to begin their investigation, Conway and Moran learn a little more about Aislinn Murray. Living alone, she appeared to have been expecting someone, with the table set for a nice meal. Conway soon learns that Aislinn had a new boyfriend, Rory Fallon, who had plans to meet her around the time of her murder. Fallon proves less than sinister during his initial interview, though his timeline for the night of the murder is flimsy enough that he could have turned up and committed the crime before following through with date night story. Turning up the pressure, in hopes of having Fallon spill, Conway gets nowhere and his forced to keep her options open.New avenues turn up potential leads, including that Aislinn apparently become fixated on her father, who disappeared from his family twenty years before. After being encouraged to forge onwards, Conway is left to chase down a gang angle. There is the additional angle as to why Aislinn changed her image a few years ago, dolling herself up and becoming more sociable. As she struggles to piece this case together, Conway receives a visit from her own father, who disappeared when she was little. This interaction is nothing short of a disaster and only serves to exacerbate a sense of being unwanted. Sensing parallels in her own life and Aislinn's past, Conway takes a new approach and revisits all the information that have on hand. It is only then that the case takes an interesting turn and turns up ideas that were previously hidden from her investigation. Filled with wonderful storytelling and an evolving narrative, French remains on the top of her game in this explosive novel, perfect for series fans and curious folk alike.
All six Dublin Murder Squad novels have proven to be a delight to read, with their winding narratives and strong cast of characters. The dedicated reader will see a loose formula to them, but this is not to say that it presents anything close to 'cookie cutter' in nature. Pulling the reader in to learn more about Antoinette Conway was the perfect approach for this novel, as she played a minor role previously and might have left some readers wondering about this slightly abrupt detective who allowed Stephen Moran into her case at St. Kilda's (see The Secret Place). French develops a number of other great characters, whose banter and placement in the story help push the narrative along, sometimes in ways the reader might not expect. Choice of the murder victim as well as the motive are also important to an effective story, which French has kept unique and yet timely as the series gained momentum. French is always keen on adding themes, which helps add new flavour to the story and keeps me entertained as I gather the threads together. The title proves to be the strongest theme for me, showing the various forms of trespassers that emerge. One could easily see that the murderer proved to be the most apparent trespasser that invaded Aislinn Murray's home, entering and leaving her body strewn on the floor after a struggle. Fathers to both Aislinn and Antoinette could also be seen as trespassers, having left their homes but invaded these women's minds at various points in the story's development. Antoinette herself may feel like a trespasser in the Squad, as she is vilified and treated poorly by her fellow detectives, turning against the only woman investigating murders. This trespasser sensation could lead her to depart, which would only fuel the rumours that Conway cannot handle the intensity of murder and the "boys' club" that it seems to be. The conscientious reader may see others, which are left to germinate for those who want a little more out of the mystery. These well-crafted tales are surely not for everyone, as the story takes time to evolve and the narrative offers slow and paced growth, but that is perhaps one of the greatest features, as the reader is forced to investigate alongside the Murder Squad. While I am caught up on the series, the binge complete, I cannot wait to see where else this series takes fans.
Kudos, Madam French for leaving me needing more, which only goes to show how effective you are at writing. I hope that many who read this and other reviews will find the time to at least try one of your mysteries and see for themselves that Ireland holds many gems, not all of which require a rainbow.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
All six Dublin Murder Squad novels have proven to be a delight to read, with their winding narratives and strong cast of characters. The dedicated reader will see a loose formula to them, but this is not to say that it presents anything close to 'cookie cutter' in nature. Pulling the reader in to learn more about Antoinette Conway was the perfect approach for this novel, as she played a minor role previously and might have left some readers wondering about this slightly abrupt detective who allowed Stephen Moran into her case at St. Kilda's (see The Secret Place). French develops a number of other great characters, whose banter and placement in the story help push the narrative along, sometimes in ways the reader might not expect. Choice of the murder victim as well as the motive are also important to an effective story, which French has kept unique and yet timely as the series gained momentum. French is always keen on adding themes, which helps add new flavour to the story and keeps me entertained as I gather the threads together. The title proves to be the strongest theme for me, showing the various forms of trespassers that emerge. One could easily see that the murderer proved to be the most apparent trespasser that invaded Aislinn Murray's home, entering and leaving her body strewn on the floor after a struggle. Fathers to both Aislinn and Antoinette could also be seen as trespassers, having left their homes but invaded these women's minds at various points in the story's development. Antoinette herself may feel like a trespasser in the Squad, as she is vilified and treated poorly by her fellow detectives, turning against the only woman investigating murders. This trespasser sensation could lead her to depart, which would only fuel the rumours that Conway cannot handle the intensity of murder and the "boys' club" that it seems to be. The conscientious reader may see others, which are left to germinate for those who want a little more out of the mystery. These well-crafted tales are surely not for everyone, as the story takes time to evolve and the narrative offers slow and paced growth, but that is perhaps one of the greatest features, as the reader is forced to investigate alongside the Murder Squad. While I am caught up on the series, the binge complete, I cannot wait to see where else this series takes fans.
Kudos, Madam French for leaving me needing more, which only goes to show how effective you are at writing. I hope that many who read this and other reviews will find the time to at least try one of your mysteries and see for themselves that Ireland holds many gems, not all of which require a rainbow.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
February 22, 2021
wow! im surprised by how much i enjoyed this. based on the synopsis, i wasnt expecting anything too exciting, but this captured my attention straight away.
maybe its the classic “whodunit” feel, a simple murder, that i appreciated. i did like the concept of someone on the inside impeding the investigation. it kept me on my toes and had me not trusting anyone, which was fun.
the only thing keeping me from rating this higher is the ending. its very much TFs MO for things to be wrapped up via a confession and im just kind of tired of it the sixth time around. for once, i want hard evidence. i want everything to be figured out before the suspect is brought in. its just all a little too convenient for my liking.
but overall, this is honestly a really good case with interesting motive, investigatory skills, and slow burn mystery.
↠ 4 stars
PS - because its the end of the series and each book can be read as a standalone, ive decided to rank each of them from favourite to least.
maybe its the classic “whodunit” feel, a simple murder, that i appreciated. i did like the concept of someone on the inside impeding the investigation. it kept me on my toes and had me not trusting anyone, which was fun.
the only thing keeping me from rating this higher is the ending. its very much TFs MO for things to be wrapped up via a confession and im just kind of tired of it the sixth time around. for once, i want hard evidence. i want everything to be figured out before the suspect is brought in. its just all a little too convenient for my liking.
but overall, this is honestly a really good case with interesting motive, investigatory skills, and slow burn mystery.
↠ 4 stars
PS - because its the end of the series and each book can be read as a standalone, ive decided to rank each of them from favourite to least.
1. the likeness (#2)
2. in the woods (#1)
3. the trespasser (#6)
4. faithful place (#3)
5. secret place (#5)
6. broken harbour (#4)
March 2, 2017
5 stars! (I would give it 10 if I could!)
This is, by far, Tana French's best novel. She drew me in - captured every ounce of me - every fiber of my being and wouldn't let go till I read the very last sentence. Breathless. Heart in my chest. Unable to concentrate on anything but this for days. Work?: An interruption, a bother. Eating? As if. This. Consumed. Me.
French perfects the Irish dialect, her prose is smart and witty. Clever. Extremely funny. I admit that I couldn’t help myself here. I can put on an Irish accent and throughout the entire book, I found myself reading it in the dialect.. especially during the portions Steve was speaking.. yeah, but.
There were times halfway through when I was scared. Terrified. Projecting. Imagining what was going to happen next. Picturing the ABSOLUTE WORST. Stomach in knots. At that point, I even messaged a Goodreads friend who just finished this and told her where I was at and that I had a bad feeling. All I can say is.. Thank god! My imagination ran wild and I was WAY off course. Tana French does that. She leads you down a path and you think, OMG!!! And you are wrong! I was led astray more times than I can count. And, in this instance, PHEW!!!
In this novel, Tana French brings back two character from previous novels. Antoinette Conway and Steve Moran. Murder Detectives. They just get each other. Play off each other well. Conway? She’s a tough cookie. Abrasive and angry. Yet funny as hell. She has never had anyone to rely on. And she doesn’t let anyone in. Not even Moran. She has a cold outer shell. And in Murder D? She has never felt like a part of the team. She is an outsider. And the other Murder D’s? They play tricks on her and have since day one. Yet Conway’s sarcasm and ability to insult the other Murder D’s who treat her like crap? Funny as all get out! Tana French had me in hysterics time and time again. And Moran? He is so trusting, Almost an innocent. Yet GOOFY as hell. And he’s smart as a whip. And he doesn’t let Conway get away with anything. (I admit that I have a crush on him. Always have. Ever since he appeared in “The Faithful Place.” Even though I am probably what 15-20 years older? I can’t help it… he’s adorable! And he gives a sh*t. Love it!). Anyhow, I digress: Together, he and Conway, they make great partners. And they work a case to death.
Here, Conway and Moran, with the help of Senior Detective Breslin, investigate the death of Aislinn Murray, which they initially thought was a domestic disturbance gone wrong. The night of her death, Aislinn was preparing a sweet meal for her new boyfriend, Rory Fallon. And he becomes the prime suspect, even though there is no hard evidence against him. Conway and Moran however, fail to believe he is the culprit and explore other avenues and immediately discover that things are not what they seem. The paths they go down? Frakking crazy!!
We the readers are sucked in from the start. While I previously would have stated that my two favorite Tana French books were “In the Woods” and “The Secret Place,” this surpasses them by MILES. Here, my stomach was in knots and my heart was beating a mile a minute and I was glued to the pages. Staying up as late as I could each night dying to finish. This one is a roller coaster. And I encourage everyone to get on it and go for a ride.
Published on Goodreads and Amazon on 3/2/17.
This is, by far, Tana French's best novel. She drew me in - captured every ounce of me - every fiber of my being and wouldn't let go till I read the very last sentence. Breathless. Heart in my chest. Unable to concentrate on anything but this for days. Work?: An interruption, a bother. Eating? As if. This. Consumed. Me.
French perfects the Irish dialect, her prose is smart and witty. Clever. Extremely funny. I admit that I couldn’t help myself here. I can put on an Irish accent and throughout the entire book, I found myself reading it in the dialect.. especially during the portions Steve was speaking.. yeah, but.
There were times halfway through when I was scared. Terrified. Projecting. Imagining what was going to happen next. Picturing the ABSOLUTE WORST. Stomach in knots. At that point, I even messaged a Goodreads friend who just finished this and told her where I was at and that I had a bad feeling. All I can say is.. Thank god! My imagination ran wild and I was WAY off course. Tana French does that. She leads you down a path and you think, OMG!!! And you are wrong! I was led astray more times than I can count. And, in this instance, PHEW!!!
In this novel, Tana French brings back two character from previous novels. Antoinette Conway and Steve Moran. Murder Detectives. They just get each other. Play off each other well. Conway? She’s a tough cookie. Abrasive and angry. Yet funny as hell. She has never had anyone to rely on. And she doesn’t let anyone in. Not even Moran. She has a cold outer shell. And in Murder D? She has never felt like a part of the team. She is an outsider. And the other Murder D’s? They play tricks on her and have since day one. Yet Conway’s sarcasm and ability to insult the other Murder D’s who treat her like crap? Funny as all get out! Tana French had me in hysterics time and time again. And Moran? He is so trusting, Almost an innocent. Yet GOOFY as hell. And he’s smart as a whip. And he doesn’t let Conway get away with anything. (I admit that I have a crush on him. Always have. Ever since he appeared in “The Faithful Place.” Even though I am probably what 15-20 years older? I can’t help it… he’s adorable! And he gives a sh*t. Love it!). Anyhow, I digress: Together, he and Conway, they make great partners. And they work a case to death.
Here, Conway and Moran, with the help of Senior Detective Breslin, investigate the death of Aislinn Murray, which they initially thought was a domestic disturbance gone wrong. The night of her death, Aislinn was preparing a sweet meal for her new boyfriend, Rory Fallon. And he becomes the prime suspect, even though there is no hard evidence against him. Conway and Moran however, fail to believe he is the culprit and explore other avenues and immediately discover that things are not what they seem. The paths they go down? Frakking crazy!!
We the readers are sucked in from the start. While I previously would have stated that my two favorite Tana French books were “In the Woods” and “The Secret Place,” this surpasses them by MILES. Here, my stomach was in knots and my heart was beating a mile a minute and I was glued to the pages. Staying up as late as I could each night dying to finish. This one is a roller coaster. And I encourage everyone to get on it and go for a ride.
Published on Goodreads and Amazon on 3/2/17.
September 24, 2016
Back to the Dublin murder squad and a second showing of Detective Antoinette Conway. It seems, however, that I somehow or another neglected to read The Secret Place, so for me this was my introduction to this character. Convinced the entire murder squad is out to do her in, force her out, she has a giant chip on her shoulder. Her partner, seems for most of the book to be a milquetoast, happy to support and follow. A young woman is found dead and the easiest solution doesn't sit well with the two partners.
This story has more bumps and dings than an automobile in a crash. Things look one way and then another. The more evidence they find the more complicated they get. The interrogation scenes are masterfully done. This is an combination of a character driven novel and a police procedural. Not easy to do, may account for the length of the book, but French does these type of things very well.
It is said patience is a virtue, and one needs patience here for sure because the pacing is very slow. The depth of the portrayals also seemed to me to alter the suspense value, but the excellent police procedural makes up for this, at least for me. Exciting story, not so much, but I found it fulfilling nonetheless. Loved how it all came together in the end, in a very plausible and reasonable way. Need to go back and read the one I miss but as always look forward to French's next.
ARC from publisher.
This story has more bumps and dings than an automobile in a crash. Things look one way and then another. The more evidence they find the more complicated they get. The interrogation scenes are masterfully done. This is an combination of a character driven novel and a police procedural. Not easy to do, may account for the length of the book, but French does these type of things very well.
It is said patience is a virtue, and one needs patience here for sure because the pacing is very slow. The depth of the portrayals also seemed to me to alter the suspense value, but the excellent police procedural makes up for this, at least for me. Exciting story, not so much, but I found it fulfilling nonetheless. Loved how it all came together in the end, in a very plausible and reasonable way. Need to go back and read the one I miss but as always look forward to French's next.
ARC from publisher.
October 11, 2016
When a pretty young woman winds up murdered, detectives Conway and Moran catch the case. Her boyfriend looks like a slam-dunk for it but why are they being rushed to book him? And why does Conway think she's met the vic before? Can Conway and Moran get the killer behind bars before the case eats them alive?
Antoinette Conway, second banana from The Secret Place takes center stage in this one. Conway, the odd (wo)man out on the Dublin Murder Squad, trusts no one and suspects everyone. From her tortured past to her tortured present, she may be one of the most complex French leads yet. Her relationship with Stephen Moran, her partner, Detective Breslin, the senior D shadowing them, and her absent father drive the tale.
Tana French's writing is as rich as every but flows really well. Unlike a lot of literary-leaning works, I never once thought the writing didn't serve the story. The style was accessible and went down like moderately-priced wine.
The plot seemed straight-forward. While I knew it couldn't be as simple as it initially appeared, French had me doubting myself quite a bit. Every twist exposed new wrinkles in the case, making the book really hard to set aside. There was one twist I should have seen coming half a mile away but I ran into it like a station wagon plowing a deer.
The last 25% was maddening! I looked around at my co-workers wondering how in the hell they could be so calm with all the shit going down! The last fifty pages or so were pure torture. Everyone was in shit up to his or her neck and I thought the whole squad might go up in flames.
The ending was the dog's breakfast I knew it would be, just like most Tana French books. While it wasn't happily ever after, life goes on with the Dublin Murder Squad. Five out of five stars.
Antoinette Conway, second banana from The Secret Place takes center stage in this one. Conway, the odd (wo)man out on the Dublin Murder Squad, trusts no one and suspects everyone. From her tortured past to her tortured present, she may be one of the most complex French leads yet. Her relationship with Stephen Moran, her partner, Detective Breslin, the senior D shadowing them, and her absent father drive the tale.
Tana French's writing is as rich as every but flows really well. Unlike a lot of literary-leaning works, I never once thought the writing didn't serve the story. The style was accessible and went down like moderately-priced wine.
The plot seemed straight-forward. While I knew it couldn't be as simple as it initially appeared, French had me doubting myself quite a bit. Every twist exposed new wrinkles in the case, making the book really hard to set aside. There was one twist I should have seen coming half a mile away but I ran into it like a station wagon plowing a deer.
The last 25% was maddening! I looked around at my co-workers wondering how in the hell they could be so calm with all the shit going down! The last fifty pages or so were pure torture. Everyone was in shit up to his or her neck and I thought the whole squad might go up in flames.
The ending was the dog's breakfast I knew it would be, just like most Tana French books. While it wasn't happily ever after, life goes on with the Dublin Murder Squad. Five out of five stars.
August 22, 2023
Phat ass TW: extreme urge to throat punch Antoinette | Hybrid earhole/eyeball read
Writing: shrug | Plot: had potential but was ruined by Antoinette | Ending: oh sweet salvation!!!!! Mama we made it!!!!
SYNOPSIS
Detective Antoinette Conway and her sidekick Detective Stephen Moran are called out on what looks like your standard partner murder... but is something else afoot?
MY OPINION
........... *stares in what the fk?*................... Safe to say I am DONE with Tana French books. Someone needs to give me a Purple Heart for finishing this. My biggest gripe with Broken Harbour, was the absolutely insufferable MC, but ole Mick is light work compared to Antoinette. I always use DD Warren as my comparison when deciding if a character is cranky or should be sectioned, and without a doubt, Antoinette needs to be evaluated for possible psychopathy.
I think Tana is going for an anti-hero type of character like Kim Stone from Angela Marsons' classic police procedural series, but she leans a lil too heavy into the 'anti' part. I'm sorry but as a certified bitch(TM) myself, my jaw literally DROPPED when Antoinette called Aislinn, the 26-year-old MURDER VICTIM, 'fucking pathetic' because Aislinn wanted to find her father who went missing when she was just a child. According to the clearly well-balanced Antoinette, Aislinn and her mom should've 'picked up a new hobby' instead of obsessing over his disappearance. Oh, but it gets worser! Not only does Antoinette call Aislinn pathetic multiple times, she goes as far to call her a 'stupid bitch' for obsessing over her 'daddy fantasy' (again, just wants to know what happened to her dad). Are we actually okay? This is beyond 'someone needs a hug'. This is someone needs a STRONG prescription.
When Antoinette isn't shaming a dead woman for missing her dad (how dare she!) we're treated to her ruminating about who in the squad is trying to slowly poison her (paraphrasing). For someone who 'eats danger with a spoon' (LMFAOOOOOO), Antoinette is so paranoid it wouldn't surprise me if she believed the spoon in her tea was bugged and sending 'chatter' back to the lads. She loves to insist she's totally comfortable in her skin (while telling us we're all pathetic fucking losers if we're insecure), but doesn't fail to remind us every two pages that she's a rage machine because everyone is picking on her for have titties and off-white skin. Oh and how could I forget her using the word "retard" as an insult? In big ole 2016? The most self-aware thing Antoinette says is she doesn't believe in introspectiveness... but perhaps she should?
Tbh, if I got chopped up by CoHo and thrown into the Rideau River, I'd rather remain a cold case than have Antoinette assigned to investigating my death. Stay tf away from my decapitated body PLS!!!!
Other than one of the worst FMC I've encountered, this book was WAAAAYYY too long. The fact the audiobook is TWENTY HOURS should be a crime. Too much closed caption writing. Too many monologues. And too slow. It took forever and a day to get to the point, only for things to be wrapped up all easy, breezy in the last 5%. What????? Ugh. If you're looking to something comparable but with tolerable characters, try Sharon Bolton's Lacey Flint series.
PROS AND CONS
Pros: I finished
Cons: Antoinette is such a foul character even Ted Bundy would give her the side eye, too long, too boring, too abruptly wrapped up, too many descriptions of wind and how the air tastes
____________________________
For some sick reason, do you want to hear more of my nonsense? Check out my podcast: Novels & Nonsense streaming everywhere.
Writing: shrug | Plot: had potential but was ruined by Antoinette | Ending: oh sweet salvation!!!!! Mama we made it!!!!
SYNOPSIS
Detective Antoinette Conway and her sidekick Detective Stephen Moran are called out on what looks like your standard partner murder... but is something else afoot?
MY OPINION
........... *stares in what the fk?*................... Safe to say I am DONE with Tana French books. Someone needs to give me a Purple Heart for finishing this. My biggest gripe with Broken Harbour, was the absolutely insufferable MC, but ole Mick is light work compared to Antoinette. I always use DD Warren as my comparison when deciding if a character is cranky or should be sectioned, and without a doubt, Antoinette needs to be evaluated for possible psychopathy.
I think Tana is going for an anti-hero type of character like Kim Stone from Angela Marsons' classic police procedural series, but she leans a lil too heavy into the 'anti' part. I'm sorry but as a certified bitch(TM) myself, my jaw literally DROPPED when Antoinette called Aislinn, the 26-year-old MURDER VICTIM, 'fucking pathetic' because Aislinn wanted to find her father who went missing when she was just a child. According to the clearly well-balanced Antoinette, Aislinn and her mom should've 'picked up a new hobby' instead of obsessing over his disappearance. Oh, but it gets worser! Not only does Antoinette call Aislinn pathetic multiple times, she goes as far to call her a 'stupid bitch' for obsessing over her 'daddy fantasy' (again, just wants to know what happened to her dad). Are we actually okay? This is beyond 'someone needs a hug'. This is someone needs a STRONG prescription.
When Antoinette isn't shaming a dead woman for missing her dad (how dare she!) we're treated to her ruminating about who in the squad is trying to slowly poison her (paraphrasing). For someone who 'eats danger with a spoon' (LMFAOOOOOO), Antoinette is so paranoid it wouldn't surprise me if she believed the spoon in her tea was bugged and sending 'chatter' back to the lads. She loves to insist she's totally comfortable in her skin (while telling us we're all pathetic fucking losers if we're insecure), but doesn't fail to remind us every two pages that she's a rage machine because everyone is picking on her for have titties and off-white skin. Oh and how could I forget her using the word "retard" as an insult? In big ole 2016? The most self-aware thing Antoinette says is she doesn't believe in introspectiveness... but perhaps she should?
Tbh, if I got chopped up by CoHo and thrown into the Rideau River, I'd rather remain a cold case than have Antoinette assigned to investigating my death. Stay tf away from my decapitated body PLS!!!!
Other than one of the worst FMC I've encountered, this book was WAAAAYYY too long. The fact the audiobook is TWENTY HOURS should be a crime. Too much closed caption writing. Too many monologues. And too slow. It took forever and a day to get to the point, only for things to be wrapped up all easy, breezy in the last 5%. What????? Ugh. If you're looking to something comparable but with tolerable characters, try Sharon Bolton's Lacey Flint series.
PROS AND CONS
Pros: I finished
Cons: Antoinette is such a foul character even Ted Bundy would give her the side eye, too long, too boring, too abruptly wrapped up, too many descriptions of wind and how the air tastes
____________________________
For some sick reason, do you want to hear more of my nonsense? Check out my podcast: Novels & Nonsense streaming everywhere.
October 25, 2016
In Tana French's very first book, "In The Woods", one of my favorite characters was named Rob Ryan. I'm clear I'm not alone with a special soft spot for Ryan. For one thing...he was the narrator. His partner was a woman named Cassie Maddox. They were a great duo --- but what was so impressive was that Tana was so good at writing a 'male voice' --you'd swear a man wrote it. In her next book, "The Likeness", Cassie Maddox becomes the narrator-( it took me several pages to get use to a female narrator after Tana was so good at writing from a male's voice). Rob Ryan has never 'yet' returned to any of her books. :(
I admit .....if I 'must' pick favorite characters - having read all her books --- my 3 top favorites are in this order: #1- Rob Ryan, from "In the Woods", #2 Cassie Maddox, from - both "In the Woods"....and the narrator in "The Likeness". I had to forgive Cassie Maddox though for picking Sam O'N'eill over Rob Ryan....and #3 Antoinette Conway, from "The Secret Place", and now the narrator of this recent book, "The Trespasser".
Antoinette Conway lives inside our heads starting with the prologue when she tells us about the stories her ma made up about her da. She never did get the truth about her absent father -- only "squirted Fairy liquid". Her birth certificate says Unknown. .....
To.... the very last page when she's kibitzing with her partner Steve Moran....off to drink some pints together!
Antoinette Conway stands out much stronger for me in THIS BOOK than she did in
"The Secret Palace"....'because' I couldn't stand all the teenage gibberish. The detective parts of the story were good--( Tana French's forte)... but those kids and their gossip- just gag me! ---
So... the BEST of "The Secret Palace" has returned: Conway and Moran in "The Trespasser". They are the Murder Squad newbies. Both are single - They have the night shift, and even though most murders take place at night they usually don't show up till morning....so they usually are stuck with "shitty domestic" cases.
However, all nights are not the same. At the end of Conway and Moran's nightshif, their superintendent, O'Kelly, gives them a new case. A woman named Aislinn Murray is dead in her home in Stoneybatter....( an old area of Dublin where many artists and yuppies live).
If Moran and Conway are not careful - the daytime, more experienced detectives in there murder squad, will take over their case. No way will Conway and Moran let this - MURDER- case slip through their fingers into the 'better-than-thou' hands, indispensable, ha- detective Breslin. So.. with 'luck'?/!....it turns out NOT to be a quick shut & closed case as originally thought. A 'slow-burn' begins.....
I read this book slow...BECAUSE the DIALOGUE is juicy--REAL and engrossing!!! I didn't want to miss a thing!!!
When Conway felt 'pissed off'... I often felt pissed off 'with her'. Being the a natural pessimist that she is, ...I felt I understood her. Yes she was often defensive - ready to slit your throat..as if you-be-mean-to-her-she-will-kick-you-in-the-balls --- BUT....
I loved this woman. It's clear she is protecting past pain. She's self absorbed, and self conscious. She's tough - but also touchy! Smart, callous...and shhhhh 'sensitive'...
but she won't let anyone see that part of her. She's also a damn great detective. She has a photogenic memory which is a handy talent to have in her line of work.
Steve Moran is everything Conway isn't --- he optimistic, idealistic, happy to please people. He's also a smart cookie. He knows what type of partner he's working with -
Yes.... Conway 'must' always drive the car when they are together. Yes... she can be verbally bossy...but he knows what he's doing. I wouldn't be to quick to think of him as a pushover. As I said... he's clear of who he is... he knows how to deal with people including his complex partner: Conway.
GREAT police procedural -- TERRIFIC DIALOGUE and INTERROGATION...JUST ENOUGH SUSPENSE TO KEEP OUR INTEREST. The side themes are good too!
Characters -- even the minor ones become a 'community-of-friends' in your head.
Lots of BEEF for your BUCK with any Tana French book....
Fans will be delighted! Newbies will be delighted! I was delighted!!!!!!
Awwwww, nothing like a REALLY GOOD BOOK....( double whammy if you add "Desperation Road", by Michael Farris Smith!!!!
I admit .....if I 'must' pick favorite characters - having read all her books --- my 3 top favorites are in this order: #1- Rob Ryan, from "In the Woods", #2 Cassie Maddox, from - both "In the Woods"....and the narrator in "The Likeness". I had to forgive Cassie Maddox though for picking Sam O'N'eill over Rob Ryan....and #3 Antoinette Conway, from "The Secret Place", and now the narrator of this recent book, "The Trespasser".
Antoinette Conway lives inside our heads starting with the prologue when she tells us about the stories her ma made up about her da. She never did get the truth about her absent father -- only "squirted Fairy liquid". Her birth certificate says Unknown. .....
To.... the very last page when she's kibitzing with her partner Steve Moran....off to drink some pints together!
Antoinette Conway stands out much stronger for me in THIS BOOK than she did in
"The Secret Palace"....'because' I couldn't stand all the teenage gibberish. The detective parts of the story were good--( Tana French's forte)... but those kids and their gossip- just gag me! ---
So... the BEST of "The Secret Palace" has returned: Conway and Moran in "The Trespasser". They are the Murder Squad newbies. Both are single - They have the night shift, and even though most murders take place at night they usually don't show up till morning....so they usually are stuck with "shitty domestic" cases.
However, all nights are not the same. At the end of Conway and Moran's nightshif, their superintendent, O'Kelly, gives them a new case. A woman named Aislinn Murray is dead in her home in Stoneybatter....( an old area of Dublin where many artists and yuppies live).
If Moran and Conway are not careful - the daytime, more experienced detectives in there murder squad, will take over their case. No way will Conway and Moran let this - MURDER- case slip through their fingers into the 'better-than-thou' hands, indispensable, ha- detective Breslin. So.. with 'luck'?/!....it turns out NOT to be a quick shut & closed case as originally thought. A 'slow-burn' begins.....
I read this book slow...BECAUSE the DIALOGUE is juicy--REAL and engrossing!!! I didn't want to miss a thing!!!
When Conway felt 'pissed off'... I often felt pissed off 'with her'. Being the a natural pessimist that she is, ...I felt I understood her. Yes she was often defensive - ready to slit your throat..as if you-be-mean-to-her-she-will-kick-you-in-the-balls --- BUT....
I loved this woman. It's clear she is protecting past pain. She's self absorbed, and self conscious. She's tough - but also touchy! Smart, callous...and shhhhh 'sensitive'...
but she won't let anyone see that part of her. She's also a damn great detective. She has a photogenic memory which is a handy talent to have in her line of work.
Steve Moran is everything Conway isn't --- he optimistic, idealistic, happy to please people. He's also a smart cookie. He knows what type of partner he's working with -
Yes.... Conway 'must' always drive the car when they are together. Yes... she can be verbally bossy...but he knows what he's doing. I wouldn't be to quick to think of him as a pushover. As I said... he's clear of who he is... he knows how to deal with people including his complex partner: Conway.
GREAT police procedural -- TERRIFIC DIALOGUE and INTERROGATION...JUST ENOUGH SUSPENSE TO KEEP OUR INTEREST. The side themes are good too!
Characters -- even the minor ones become a 'community-of-friends' in your head.
Lots of BEEF for your BUCK with any Tana French book....
Fans will be delighted! Newbies will be delighted! I was delighted!!!!!!
Awwwww, nothing like a REALLY GOOD BOOK....( double whammy if you add "Desperation Road", by Michael Farris Smith!!!!
September 30, 2017
2.5* The Trespasser is an in depth story with considerable detail on police procedural while attempting to solve a murder. Detective Antoinette Conway has been assigned a case along with her partner Steve, which could easily be just a domestic dispute or as Conway is hoping, a full blown serial killer on the loose; something she can really sink her teeth into. She has become quite paranoid lately in the department as other squad members pull mean pranks and are leaking sensitive case details she has been working on to the local paper. Detective Conway is a complex character with a lofty chip on her shoulder, a right mouthy gob that gets her in additional hot water, and is extremely reluctant to take any direction or suggestions from senior members. With the lengthy, thorough and detailed interviews with a suspect and witnesses throughout the book, it demonstrates how painfully slow it can be for detectives to take a small step in the right direction to solve a case. Conway at some point will have to decide to continue to gather enough evidence to convict who she believes is the killer or back off and roll with the best scenario she feels everyone in the squad including the superintendent wants her to take. Lots of dialogue and drawn out scenes will either keep the reader well entertained or put one to sleep.
October 8, 2017
This is an excellent police procedural and, to my mind, Tana French's best book yet. At its center is Detective Antoinette Conway who is new to the Dublin Murder Squad and who has gotten a very cool reception. Many of her new mates actively dislike her; she's subjected to continued harassment, and she's assigned a lot of crap cases.
The pattern seems to be continuing one morning when she and her partner, Stephen Moran, are assigned a new case that appears to be open and shut. An attractive young woman named Aislinn Murray is found dead in her home, apparently the victim of a lovers' quarrel that has spun out of control. The two detectives bring in Aislinn's new boyfriend, Rory Fallon, and question him under the watchful eye of a senior detective who's inserted himself into the case. Fallon is obviously nervous, and there are problems with the story he tells. To the senior detective, the case seems a slam dunk and he presses Conway and Moran to charge Fallon and move on to new business.
Conway, who is the lead detective on the case, balks and insists on clearing up loose ends. As she does, she further alienates many other members of the squad and seems to be committing career suicide. But she and Moran persist and gradually become convinced that maybe this case isn't as simple and straightforward as it appears on the surface.
Like all of French's characters, Antoinette Conway is a complex bundle of ambition, hopes, fears, dreams and doubts. She carries a lot of personal baggage, and at times, she's not very likeable. But she is smart and persistent and determined to follow her own course, irrespective of where it might lead, who it might offend, and what it might portend for her personally.
The principal strength of the book for me is the way French, through her protagonist, follows this case from beginning to end. The Author has clearly done her homework, and the police procedure here, most especially the scenes in the interview rooms, rings truer than that in almost any other crime novel I've ever read. The book is very well-plotted; the characters and the action are compelling, and it's a book that's almost impossible to put down. 4.5 stars for now, reserving the right to go to 5 after a second reading.
The pattern seems to be continuing one morning when she and her partner, Stephen Moran, are assigned a new case that appears to be open and shut. An attractive young woman named Aislinn Murray is found dead in her home, apparently the victim of a lovers' quarrel that has spun out of control. The two detectives bring in Aislinn's new boyfriend, Rory Fallon, and question him under the watchful eye of a senior detective who's inserted himself into the case. Fallon is obviously nervous, and there are problems with the story he tells. To the senior detective, the case seems a slam dunk and he presses Conway and Moran to charge Fallon and move on to new business.
Conway, who is the lead detective on the case, balks and insists on clearing up loose ends. As she does, she further alienates many other members of the squad and seems to be committing career suicide. But she and Moran persist and gradually become convinced that maybe this case isn't as simple and straightforward as it appears on the surface.
Like all of French's characters, Antoinette Conway is a complex bundle of ambition, hopes, fears, dreams and doubts. She carries a lot of personal baggage, and at times, she's not very likeable. But she is smart and persistent and determined to follow her own course, irrespective of where it might lead, who it might offend, and what it might portend for her personally.
The principal strength of the book for me is the way French, through her protagonist, follows this case from beginning to end. The Author has clearly done her homework, and the police procedure here, most especially the scenes in the interview rooms, rings truer than that in almost any other crime novel I've ever read. The book is very well-plotted; the characters and the action are compelling, and it's a book that's almost impossible to put down. 4.5 stars for now, reserving the right to go to 5 after a second reading.
October 30, 2016
4.5 stars
“Dozens and dozens of people, they just keep coming, and every single one of their heads is crammed with stories they believe and stories they want to believe and stories someone else has made them believe…”
The Trespasser is about the stories that we create. We sometimes believe in these stories so much that they become our truths. When we get wrapped up in these stories, we fail to see the cracks and dangers, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.
When she was a child, Antoinette Conway’s mother told her that her father was an Egyptian Prince, a medical student from Saudi Arabia, a Brazilian guitarist. Her mother never told her the truth, and Antoinette grew up and stopped believing in stories. However, what she doesn’t realize is that she turned the idea of being a Detective on the Murder Squad into a fantasy.
Two years on the Murder Squad, and the cracks are showing; sick of being constantly harassed and tired of working cases that require little skill, Antoinette is on her way to resigning. Once again, Antoinette and her partner, Stephen Moran, are assigned a murder case that seems cut and dry. The victim, Aislinn Murray, appears to have been killed by her boyfriend. As Conway and Moran, start to digging into Aislinn’s life, they begin to create stories about whom she was and the intrigue that she got wrapped up in. Aislinn too expertly wove stories, trapping victims in her fantasyland. Conway needs to work through all of these stories in order to not only bring Aislinn’s case to justice, but also to come to terms with her own reality.
Everyone seems to have their favorite Tana French book; some of French’s books have resonated with me more than others. My favorite up to this point has been Faithful Place, as Frank Mackey’s story and character got under my skin.I have to say that the Trespasser is not far behind due to the gritty, compelling narrative that Antoinette Conway weaves. I highly recommend!
“Dozens and dozens of people, they just keep coming, and every single one of their heads is crammed with stories they believe and stories they want to believe and stories someone else has made them believe…”
The Trespasser is about the stories that we create. We sometimes believe in these stories so much that they become our truths. When we get wrapped up in these stories, we fail to see the cracks and dangers, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.
When she was a child, Antoinette Conway’s mother told her that her father was an Egyptian Prince, a medical student from Saudi Arabia, a Brazilian guitarist. Her mother never told her the truth, and Antoinette grew up and stopped believing in stories. However, what she doesn’t realize is that she turned the idea of being a Detective on the Murder Squad into a fantasy.
Two years on the Murder Squad, and the cracks are showing; sick of being constantly harassed and tired of working cases that require little skill, Antoinette is on her way to resigning. Once again, Antoinette and her partner, Stephen Moran, are assigned a murder case that seems cut and dry. The victim, Aislinn Murray, appears to have been killed by her boyfriend. As Conway and Moran, start to digging into Aislinn’s life, they begin to create stories about whom she was and the intrigue that she got wrapped up in. Aislinn too expertly wove stories, trapping victims in her fantasyland. Conway needs to work through all of these stories in order to not only bring Aislinn’s case to justice, but also to come to terms with her own reality.
Everyone seems to have their favorite Tana French book; some of French’s books have resonated with me more than others. My favorite up to this point has been Faithful Place, as Frank Mackey’s story and character got under my skin.I have to say that the Trespasser is not far behind due to the gritty, compelling narrative that Antoinette Conway weaves. I highly recommend!
July 25, 2017
All you Tana French fans out there, I'm late to the party. Yes, "The Trespasser" is my introduction to The Dublin Murder Squad Series.
The Sue Grafton alphabet series is as close to a detective novel as I've gotten. Actually, you could say that "The Trespasser" does not fit into any genre that I usually read. So, in many ways, reading it has been an adventure for me. Am I glad I journeyed down a new road? Yes.
Ms. French's plot was very well written. It was like sitting in front of my TV, seeing everything that was going on, but also, being privy to every thought and feeling that Detective Antoinette Conway was having. The book was narrated by Detective Conway who I found to be unlikable; however, I thought her partner, Detective Stephen Moran, to be somewhat of a saint for putting up with her negativity. (What a guy.) I don't need to like the characters in a book to enjoy it, and in this case, Detective Conway's attitude was pertinent to the storyline. After knowing I had it all figured out, many twists and surprises started happening, and the ending came together extremely well!
I've had input from friends who love this series. Some of them thought this book was the best, while others favored the first book. I enjoyed this author's writing style enough to read another book by her. Perhaps I'll read the first book and decide which I like best.
I must thank one of my dearest friends, Kris, for "persuading" me to read this enjoyable book. Without Kris, I would have not experienced this gifted author.
Highly recommend this book to all the lovers of detective stories.
4.5 stars.
The Sue Grafton alphabet series is as close to a detective novel as I've gotten. Actually, you could say that "The Trespasser" does not fit into any genre that I usually read. So, in many ways, reading it has been an adventure for me. Am I glad I journeyed down a new road? Yes.
Ms. French's plot was very well written. It was like sitting in front of my TV, seeing everything that was going on, but also, being privy to every thought and feeling that Detective Antoinette Conway was having. The book was narrated by Detective Conway who I found to be unlikable; however, I thought her partner, Detective Stephen Moran, to be somewhat of a saint for putting up with her negativity. (What a guy.) I don't need to like the characters in a book to enjoy it, and in this case, Detective Conway's attitude was pertinent to the storyline. After knowing I had it all figured out, many twists and surprises started happening, and the ending came together extremely well!
I've had input from friends who love this series. Some of them thought this book was the best, while others favored the first book. I enjoyed this author's writing style enough to read another book by her. Perhaps I'll read the first book and decide which I like best.
I must thank one of my dearest friends, Kris, for "persuading" me to read this enjoyable book. Without Kris, I would have not experienced this gifted author.
Highly recommend this book to all the lovers of detective stories.
4.5 stars.
October 18, 2016
Tana French is so much at the top of her game I could rate this book six or seven stars. The Trespasser is her best yet, in a career of superb books.
Her ear for dialogue is pitch-perfect. Her protagonist is a tough, unapologetic detective to whom we could listen forever.
The case illustrates loyalty, joy in job (way too rare in books), suspense, the need for and danger of living inside one's head, and character trajectory scenes that sparkle in unexpected ways.
The Trespasser will make readers hope to be stuck in lines or at doctors' offices or at airports--any place that allows an excuse to dive back into the book.
Her ear for dialogue is pitch-perfect. Her protagonist is a tough, unapologetic detective to whom we could listen forever.
The case illustrates loyalty, joy in job (way too rare in books), suspense, the need for and danger of living inside one's head, and character trajectory scenes that sparkle in unexpected ways.
The Trespasser will make readers hope to be stuck in lines or at doctors' offices or at airports--any place that allows an excuse to dive back into the book.
November 3, 2016
The Trespasser is the sixth novel by Tana French and the sixth in her vivid, beguiling and compulsively thrilling "Dublin Murder Squad" series, which follows a contemporary Irish homicide investigation from the point of view a detective who played a supporting role in the previous book. Published in October 2016, this is the first novel whose publication date I've anticipated, reserving the first hold at my favorite library and racing over to pick it up like a zombie-eyed Black Friday shopper craving a markdown on an HDTV. No living author has a hold on me like French and her new novel--psychologically rich, sociopolitically charged and structurally brilliant--proves why.
The story is told by Antoinette Conway, a thirty-two year old rising star promoted from Missing Persons into the elite Murder Squad operating out of Dublin Castle. A tenacious detective with solid interviewing skills--which her wholesome thirty-three year old partner Stephen Moran observed when she assisted him in locking down a girls' boarding school and interrogating eight separate teenagers in The Secret Place--Conway is prepared to resign. Her gaffer Superintendent O'Kelly slots the single Conway & Moran the thankless night shift cleaning up alco murders, while anonymous harassment from a person or persons on the squad keeps Conway watching her back.
Handed a domestic violence case by O'Kelly at the end of their shift, Conway & Moran are dispatched to the scruffy neighborhood of Viking Gardens, where an anonymous call to Stoneybatter station alerted Garda to the body of twenty-six year old Aislinn Murray, dead from a skull fracture on the floor of her apartment. Moran's hopes that a serial killer might be on the loose are dashed by evidence Aislinn was preparing a romantic dinner at the time of her death; text messages indicate her date was Rory Fallon. Conway has seen Aislinn before but is unable to place where. She's also puzzled by their gaffer's order that she and Moran bring in vainglorious Detective Don Breslin, "someone who's good with witnesses" as backup.
Domestics are mostly slam-dunks; the question isn't whether you can arrest your guy, or girl; it's whether you can build a case that'll hold up in court. A lot of people love that--it pretties up your solve rate, looks good to the brass--but not me: it means domestics get you fuck-all respect from the squad, where I could do with it, because everyone knows the solve came easy. Which is also another reason they piss me off: they've got a whole special level of idiotic all to themselves. You take out your wife or your husband or your Shag of the Day, what the fuck do you think is gonna happen? We're gonna be standing there with our mouths open, scratching our heads at the mind-blowing mystery of it all, Duh, I dunno, musta been the Mafia? Surprise: we're gonna go straight for you, the evidence is gonna pile up way over your head, and you're gonna wind up with a life sentence. If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world.
Conway & Moran keep Breslin in the dark long enough to have a crack at their first witness, Aislinn's best friend Lucy Riordian. Assuming the D's are there about Aislinn, Lucy maintains that while her friend hadn't known Rory long and was taking things slow with the bookstore owner, everything was fine between them. Aislinn's da vanished when she was a child and her mother, who did not take the separation well, recently passed away, liberating Aislinn to give her life a makeover. Lucy reveals that Aislinn had a habit of breaking dates, hinting that she might have had a fella before Rory, but claims she never confided who this man, if he existed, was.
While Conway has no doubt that Rory Fallon is their man, Moran presents other theories. Aislinn Murray, who Conway refers to as "dead Barbie," seemed to be putting her life together out of magazines. Her story remains a mystery, and while the D's agree that Lucy was holding something back, Conway doubts that this other fella existed. It strikes Moran that the call came in to a cop shop--not 999, where the calls are recorded--and while civilians wouldn't have known that, gangsters would've. However, when Breslin joins Conway to interview the cloying Rory Fallon at the squad room, their suspect leaves nearly half an hour in his evening unaccounted for and little doubt that he killed Aislinn.
Conway feels pressure from Breslin to book Rory Fallon. Considering her enemy or enemies on the squad, it occurs to Conway that someone wants this case closed quickly. She discovers that one of the Murder D's ran a criminal background check on Aislinn Murray months before her death. Moran conjectures that if Aislinn's fella was a gangster, he might have a cop on his payroll, like Breslin or his miserable partner Joe McCann. Conway comes upon the men whispering about taking care of the woman and putting things back to normal, which might have been about Conway, or about McCann's estranged wife. Conway becomes aware of a tall dark stranger lurking around her house. She begins to doubt herself.
My instincts are good--not bragging, every D's are, specially every D who makes it as far as Murder--and I know how to use them. They've come through for me when all the solid detective work in the world would have run me into a brick wall. But this time they're being bugger-all use. Not that they're out of commission--every sensor is firing wildly, red lights flashing, beeping noises everywhere--but they just keep sweeping, can't pin anything down. Rory's keeping something back, but I can't tell whether it's the murder or not; Breslin's fucking with us, but I can't figure out why. I feel like I'm missing the bleeding obvious here, but the harder I concentrate, the more all the signals turn to noise. Something is scrambling them.
The Trespasser has the quality control that's been a staple of Tana French's work from the beginning and with this mesmerizing new entry, she proves again how complete an author she is. French's prose ratchets technical detail into a larger story incorporating the culture, geography and weather of modern Ireland. Her dialogue crackles with passion and wit, exploring one of my favorite sub-genres: the workplace drama. I don't know why, but I love reading about people going to work. The political content of French's books--not as in public policy, but the art and science of influence at any level--is bar none. She writes superlative interrogation scenes. And for French, relationships, whether friends, family or co-worker, are essential. The murder stuff is coincidental.
French has employed a female homicide detective as narrator before (in the undercover themed The Likeness) but by setting The Trespasser predominantly in the office and surrounding Antoinette Conway with co-workers the detective doesn't trust, this novel more than any other is about the challenges warrior women may face in the workplace, waging a campaign on two fronts: against the enemy they can see as well as the saboteurs they cannot. Conway's past is largely kept submerged--a likely development for an author publishing her sixth novel as opposed to her first--but her fury is righteous, her angst is unmistakable and the novel is unputdownable.
For readers unaccustomed to the riches of Tana French who are ready to dip their necks under the yellow tape, her "series" does not need to be read in any order due to each novel being narrated by a different character, as well as her commitment to start and end one story with each book. It is not necessary to commit to multiple books or purchases to get through one story. Here goes my ranking of the series from most favorite to least favorite. Keep in mind this is like ranking the six James Bond movies starring Sean Connery from most favorite to least favorite--there are no losers.
1. Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad #3)
2. In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad #1)
3. The Trespasser (Dublin Murder Squad #6)
4. The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2)
5. The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad #5)
6. Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad #4)
The story is told by Antoinette Conway, a thirty-two year old rising star promoted from Missing Persons into the elite Murder Squad operating out of Dublin Castle. A tenacious detective with solid interviewing skills--which her wholesome thirty-three year old partner Stephen Moran observed when she assisted him in locking down a girls' boarding school and interrogating eight separate teenagers in The Secret Place--Conway is prepared to resign. Her gaffer Superintendent O'Kelly slots the single Conway & Moran the thankless night shift cleaning up alco murders, while anonymous harassment from a person or persons on the squad keeps Conway watching her back.
Handed a domestic violence case by O'Kelly at the end of their shift, Conway & Moran are dispatched to the scruffy neighborhood of Viking Gardens, where an anonymous call to Stoneybatter station alerted Garda to the body of twenty-six year old Aislinn Murray, dead from a skull fracture on the floor of her apartment. Moran's hopes that a serial killer might be on the loose are dashed by evidence Aislinn was preparing a romantic dinner at the time of her death; text messages indicate her date was Rory Fallon. Conway has seen Aislinn before but is unable to place where. She's also puzzled by their gaffer's order that she and Moran bring in vainglorious Detective Don Breslin, "someone who's good with witnesses" as backup.
Domestics are mostly slam-dunks; the question isn't whether you can arrest your guy, or girl; it's whether you can build a case that'll hold up in court. A lot of people love that--it pretties up your solve rate, looks good to the brass--but not me: it means domestics get you fuck-all respect from the squad, where I could do with it, because everyone knows the solve came easy. Which is also another reason they piss me off: they've got a whole special level of idiotic all to themselves. You take out your wife or your husband or your Shag of the Day, what the fuck do you think is gonna happen? We're gonna be standing there with our mouths open, scratching our heads at the mind-blowing mystery of it all, Duh, I dunno, musta been the Mafia? Surprise: we're gonna go straight for you, the evidence is gonna pile up way over your head, and you're gonna wind up with a life sentence. If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world.
Conway & Moran keep Breslin in the dark long enough to have a crack at their first witness, Aislinn's best friend Lucy Riordian. Assuming the D's are there about Aislinn, Lucy maintains that while her friend hadn't known Rory long and was taking things slow with the bookstore owner, everything was fine between them. Aislinn's da vanished when she was a child and her mother, who did not take the separation well, recently passed away, liberating Aislinn to give her life a makeover. Lucy reveals that Aislinn had a habit of breaking dates, hinting that she might have had a fella before Rory, but claims she never confided who this man, if he existed, was.
While Conway has no doubt that Rory Fallon is their man, Moran presents other theories. Aislinn Murray, who Conway refers to as "dead Barbie," seemed to be putting her life together out of magazines. Her story remains a mystery, and while the D's agree that Lucy was holding something back, Conway doubts that this other fella existed. It strikes Moran that the call came in to a cop shop--not 999, where the calls are recorded--and while civilians wouldn't have known that, gangsters would've. However, when Breslin joins Conway to interview the cloying Rory Fallon at the squad room, their suspect leaves nearly half an hour in his evening unaccounted for and little doubt that he killed Aislinn.
Conway feels pressure from Breslin to book Rory Fallon. Considering her enemy or enemies on the squad, it occurs to Conway that someone wants this case closed quickly. She discovers that one of the Murder D's ran a criminal background check on Aislinn Murray months before her death. Moran conjectures that if Aislinn's fella was a gangster, he might have a cop on his payroll, like Breslin or his miserable partner Joe McCann. Conway comes upon the men whispering about taking care of the woman and putting things back to normal, which might have been about Conway, or about McCann's estranged wife. Conway becomes aware of a tall dark stranger lurking around her house. She begins to doubt herself.
My instincts are good--not bragging, every D's are, specially every D who makes it as far as Murder--and I know how to use them. They've come through for me when all the solid detective work in the world would have run me into a brick wall. But this time they're being bugger-all use. Not that they're out of commission--every sensor is firing wildly, red lights flashing, beeping noises everywhere--but they just keep sweeping, can't pin anything down. Rory's keeping something back, but I can't tell whether it's the murder or not; Breslin's fucking with us, but I can't figure out why. I feel like I'm missing the bleeding obvious here, but the harder I concentrate, the more all the signals turn to noise. Something is scrambling them.
The Trespasser has the quality control that's been a staple of Tana French's work from the beginning and with this mesmerizing new entry, she proves again how complete an author she is. French's prose ratchets technical detail into a larger story incorporating the culture, geography and weather of modern Ireland. Her dialogue crackles with passion and wit, exploring one of my favorite sub-genres: the workplace drama. I don't know why, but I love reading about people going to work. The political content of French's books--not as in public policy, but the art and science of influence at any level--is bar none. She writes superlative interrogation scenes. And for French, relationships, whether friends, family or co-worker, are essential. The murder stuff is coincidental.
French has employed a female homicide detective as narrator before (in the undercover themed The Likeness) but by setting The Trespasser predominantly in the office and surrounding Antoinette Conway with co-workers the detective doesn't trust, this novel more than any other is about the challenges warrior women may face in the workplace, waging a campaign on two fronts: against the enemy they can see as well as the saboteurs they cannot. Conway's past is largely kept submerged--a likely development for an author publishing her sixth novel as opposed to her first--but her fury is righteous, her angst is unmistakable and the novel is unputdownable.
For readers unaccustomed to the riches of Tana French who are ready to dip their necks under the yellow tape, her "series" does not need to be read in any order due to each novel being narrated by a different character, as well as her commitment to start and end one story with each book. It is not necessary to commit to multiple books or purchases to get through one story. Here goes my ranking of the series from most favorite to least favorite. Keep in mind this is like ranking the six James Bond movies starring Sean Connery from most favorite to least favorite--there are no losers.
1. Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad #3)
2. In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad #1)
3. The Trespasser (Dublin Murder Squad #6)
4. The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2)
5. The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad #5)
6. Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad #4)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 17, 2016
I've enjoyed all of Tana French's previous books, and I enjoyed this one, too! This book stars Antoinette Conway and her partner Steve Moran, who were previously featured in The Secret Place. This time, Conway is the lead detective.
A young woman is found dead in her home. Evidence isn't really pointing in any particular direction. Conway and Moran come up with multiple theories, and it seems like they are being pushed toward one by a third detective, Breslin, who was also assigned to the case.
Conway is the only female in the Murder squad, and she is paranoid that the men are trying to make her quit. Except for Steve. He "gets" Conway. They are on the same wavelength. Steve is super with coming up with ideas and theories, and this drives Conway crazy sometimes, but she listens to him. I'm so glad there is not the slightest hint of romance between them!
There was a point in the book where I felt impatient with the investigation. I started to think things were becoming a bit improbable. It soon straightened out, and then I was in awe of Tana French's writing skills. Her characters are so real! The conclusion of the case was so sensitively written that I felt I was a fly on the wall. That lifted this book to 5 stars for me.
I think fans of Tana French will really enjoy this book. For anyone who hasn't read her books yet, pick up any one of them. The reading order doesn't matter because the lead detective is different in each book.
A young woman is found dead in her home. Evidence isn't really pointing in any particular direction. Conway and Moran come up with multiple theories, and it seems like they are being pushed toward one by a third detective, Breslin, who was also assigned to the case.
Conway is the only female in the Murder squad, and she is paranoid that the men are trying to make her quit. Except for Steve. He "gets" Conway. They are on the same wavelength. Steve is super with coming up with ideas and theories, and this drives Conway crazy sometimes, but she listens to him. I'm so glad there is not the slightest hint of romance between them!
There was a point in the book where I felt impatient with the investigation. I started to think things were becoming a bit improbable. It soon straightened out, and then I was in awe of Tana French's writing skills. Her characters are so real! The conclusion of the case was so sensitively written that I felt I was a fly on the wall. That lifted this book to 5 stars for me.
I think fans of Tana French will really enjoy this book. For anyone who hasn't read her books yet, pick up any one of them. The reading order doesn't matter because the lead detective is different in each book.
July 18, 2023
Another smashing read from Tana French, The Trespasser is brilliant. It has the Murder Squad duo of Conway and Moran from The Secret Place back. Detective Conway is being worn to a frazzle by the hostility and cheap tricks she has to endure from the other detectives. They resent her, because she's tough as nails and doesn't go along with their harassment. It's made her an outsider in the only job she's ever loved. Sometimes, she even suspects her low-key partner Moran is in on the joke or wished he were.
The story of a young woman who's been brutally murdered is told through Conway's thoughts this time, instead of Moran's. This may be Conway's last case, if she leaves the Murder Squad. She wants a solve for this reason and because she won't accept anything else.
The story of a young woman who's been brutally murdered is told through Conway's thoughts this time, instead of Moran's. This may be Conway's last case, if she leaves the Murder Squad. She wants a solve for this reason and because she won't accept anything else.
Want to read
May 11, 2017Finally! Hearing so much greatness about this author, and from what I've read so far it's easy to see why!
*fingers X'd*
*fingers X'd*
August 25, 2019
Grand.
Readers of mysteries and observers of crimes and interviews have witnessed some brilliant interviews between a detective / prosecutor / cross examiner and a suspect over the course of time. The classic example is the confrontation between Raskolnikov and Porfiry in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The witness stand drama between Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men also comes to mind. There have been several 60 Minutes interviews also that have captured an audience and caused everyone watching to hold their breath, to forget about everything else and focus intently on the exchange between two people. In such a dialogue, it is though all the world fades to grey behind the two verbal combatants, they are locked in an all consuming duel for truth and understanding.
Tana French’s 2016 novel The Trespasser has the last quarter of the book engaged in a series of such clashes, a running altercation between investigators and suspects that hold the reader mesmerized and entranced. There was some early lag in this novel that was not present in her other books, but French did this to set up her extraordinary finish and it was well worth the wait.
This novel also features one of French’s most enigmatic and powerful characters: Antoinette Conway. Since French’s second novel (2008's The Likeness) her central protagonist and narrator have been introduced in the previous novel. In 2014’s The Secret Place, we were introduced to Conway as a tough woman detective with a chip on her shoulder. French was only just getting started with Conway who besides being a hard nosed badass Irish murder detective also has some significant family issues and is about as complicated a figure as this genre can present.
French’s use of a character in a supporting role prior to the next book’s protagonist makes me wonder who will be next. Stephen Moran was the narrator in The Secret Place so he joins Frank Mackey as having been in three books. Of course O’Kelly and Cooper have been in all (I think). My vote is Breslin. This would seem like an unlikely pick but think of Scorcher Kennedy from Broken Harbor.
As in her previous novels, French weaves into The Trespasser more than just a murder mystery; this has elements and thoughtful explorations of Irish culture and western civilization, philosophy and psychology.
French is consistently good and The Trespasser is no exception.
Readers of mysteries and observers of crimes and interviews have witnessed some brilliant interviews between a detective / prosecutor / cross examiner and a suspect over the course of time. The classic example is the confrontation between Raskolnikov and Porfiry in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The witness stand drama between Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men also comes to mind. There have been several 60 Minutes interviews also that have captured an audience and caused everyone watching to hold their breath, to forget about everything else and focus intently on the exchange between two people. In such a dialogue, it is though all the world fades to grey behind the two verbal combatants, they are locked in an all consuming duel for truth and understanding.
Tana French’s 2016 novel The Trespasser has the last quarter of the book engaged in a series of such clashes, a running altercation between investigators and suspects that hold the reader mesmerized and entranced. There was some early lag in this novel that was not present in her other books, but French did this to set up her extraordinary finish and it was well worth the wait.
This novel also features one of French’s most enigmatic and powerful characters: Antoinette Conway. Since French’s second novel (2008's The Likeness) her central protagonist and narrator have been introduced in the previous novel. In 2014’s The Secret Place, we were introduced to Conway as a tough woman detective with a chip on her shoulder. French was only just getting started with Conway who besides being a hard nosed badass Irish murder detective also has some significant family issues and is about as complicated a figure as this genre can present.
French’s use of a character in a supporting role prior to the next book’s protagonist makes me wonder who will be next. Stephen Moran was the narrator in The Secret Place so he joins Frank Mackey as having been in three books. Of course O’Kelly and Cooper have been in all (I think). My vote is Breslin. This would seem like an unlikely pick but think of Scorcher Kennedy from Broken Harbor.
As in her previous novels, French weaves into The Trespasser more than just a murder mystery; this has elements and thoughtful explorations of Irish culture and western civilization, philosophy and psychology.
French is consistently good and The Trespasser is no exception.
September 23, 2016
Antoinette Conway had always dreamed of being on the murder squad, but she's burnt out after two years of unchallenging domestic cases and merciless harassment from her own squad mates. One morning, the gaffer hands her and her partner Stephen Moran the case of twenty-six-year-old murder victim Aislinn Murray. There's outside pressure to charge the victim's boyfriend and wrap up the case quickly, but not all the pieces are fitting together. It has all the attributes of a lover's spat gone wrong, but there is very little physical evidence, the victim's best friend alludes to the possibility secret relationship, and Conway recognizes the victim from somewhere. Could this be the big case Conway and Moran have been waiting for?
The Trespasser, the sixth in the Dublin Murder Squad series, is my first Tana French novel. It's probably not ideal to read them out of order and I know that detectives Conway and Moran also appear in The Secret Place. However, it worked as a standalone. I didn't ever feel lost or like I'd missed out on anything. Now I need to go back and read these in order for an even richer experience! This book felt more on the literary side than many of the mysteries I've read lately. There are no wasted characters and everyone has a complete personality. Even the less important characters have little quirks that make them easy to remember; one floater has an annoying (and slightly hilarious) habit of recording every single detail during an interview. I did have to take more breaks than usual while reading. It's so dense with detail and it felt like I was following the case in real-time. When Conway and Moran weren't making progress, neither was I! It's the kind of mystery that you settle into and enjoy the ride, rather than a page turner. The pace did pick up around the 2/3s of the way through.
It was a bit of a relief to read a book with one perspective and a linear timeline! This story is told from the perspective of Detective Antoinette Conway. She's sarcastic and jaded. She's always on the defensive because she's so used to putting up with abuse from her squad. She's convinced they're trying to drive her off the squad and she remains hyper-vigilant, always ready for the next attack. Conway's paranoia, plus the history with her dad, add an interesting layer to this mystery. Conway has a hardened shell, but every once and a while she lets us see a glimpse of the wide-eyed detective she once was. There's a part where she reveals her daydreams about her and her partner's future: "Once or twice— more— I caught myself daydreaming like a sappy teenager about our future together: about someday when we would get the decent cases, the genius plans we’d dream up to trap the cunning psychos, the interrogations that would go down in squad history. Big tough Conway going all misty-eyed; how the lads would have laughed." It's such a simple dream and in the context of all her tough talk, it made me develop a real soft spot for her. She still has a spark of love for her job and I really wanted her to get her big break and some relief from the bullying!
Conway's partner Stephen Moran is a likable people-pleaser who is still able to dream big. Unsurprisingly, his interrogation technique is "Nice Boy Next Door." While Conway is resigned to the Aislinn Murray case being like one of their usual domestic cases, Moran convinces her that there may be more to the case. The partnership between Conway and Moran works because they have completely opposite personalities and they balance each other out so well. Their non-verbal communication makes it seem like they have their own secret language. My favorite parts were the suspect interviews, because I loved the back and forth between the detectives as they tried to manipulate the suspects into submission. As much as I loved the partnership between Conway and Moran, the interviews Conway did with Detective Breslin were my favorites. I loved the dynamic between their "Cool Girl" and "Chief Jock" techniques.
This book is about the consequences of manipulating other people's lives by creating scripts for them to live through and getting caught up in stories we create for ourselves. Even Conway, who despises people who live in a fantasy world, has conjured up stories of her own and tries to uphold a certain image. The Trespasser is an interesting story from beginning to end with fascinating characters. It's detailed in a way that made me feel like part of the squad and like I was invested in the outcome. I regret putting off this series for so long, but I'm so happy I have five more of these to read!
______________________________
I received this book for free from Penguin Random House First to Read in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The publication date is October 4, 2016.
What-if-maybe crap is for weak people. It belongs to the ones who don’t have the strength to make actual situations go their way, so they have to hide away in daydreams where they can play at controlling what comes next. And that makes them even weaker. Every what-if is a gift to anyone who’s looking for a hold on you, and that means us. If a guy’s whole head is in reality, then reality is the only route we can take to get to him. If he’s letting his mind prance off down dozens of twisty hypothetical fairy tales, every one of those is a crack we can use to prize him open.
The Trespasser, the sixth in the Dublin Murder Squad series, is my first Tana French novel. It's probably not ideal to read them out of order and I know that detectives Conway and Moran also appear in The Secret Place. However, it worked as a standalone. I didn't ever feel lost or like I'd missed out on anything. Now I need to go back and read these in order for an even richer experience! This book felt more on the literary side than many of the mysteries I've read lately. There are no wasted characters and everyone has a complete personality. Even the less important characters have little quirks that make them easy to remember; one floater has an annoying (and slightly hilarious) habit of recording every single detail during an interview. I did have to take more breaks than usual while reading. It's so dense with detail and it felt like I was following the case in real-time. When Conway and Moran weren't making progress, neither was I! It's the kind of mystery that you settle into and enjoy the ride, rather than a page turner. The pace did pick up around the 2/3s of the way through.
The truth is, if you don’t exist without someone else, you don’t exist at all.
It was a bit of a relief to read a book with one perspective and a linear timeline! This story is told from the perspective of Detective Antoinette Conway. She's sarcastic and jaded. She's always on the defensive because she's so used to putting up with abuse from her squad. She's convinced they're trying to drive her off the squad and she remains hyper-vigilant, always ready for the next attack. Conway's paranoia, plus the history with her dad, add an interesting layer to this mystery. Conway has a hardened shell, but every once and a while she lets us see a glimpse of the wide-eyed detective she once was. There's a part where she reveals her daydreams about her and her partner's future: "Once or twice— more— I caught myself daydreaming like a sappy teenager about our future together: about someday when we would get the decent cases, the genius plans we’d dream up to trap the cunning psychos, the interrogations that would go down in squad history. Big tough Conway going all misty-eyed; how the lads would have laughed." It's such a simple dream and in the context of all her tough talk, it made me develop a real soft spot for her. She still has a spark of love for her job and I really wanted her to get her big break and some relief from the bullying!
You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that’s built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that.
Conway's partner Stephen Moran is a likable people-pleaser who is still able to dream big. Unsurprisingly, his interrogation technique is "Nice Boy Next Door." While Conway is resigned to the Aislinn Murray case being like one of their usual domestic cases, Moran convinces her that there may be more to the case. The partnership between Conway and Moran works because they have completely opposite personalities and they balance each other out so well. Their non-verbal communication makes it seem like they have their own secret language. My favorite parts were the suspect interviews, because I loved the back and forth between the detectives as they tried to manipulate the suspects into submission. As much as I loved the partnership between Conway and Moran, the interviews Conway did with Detective Breslin were my favorites. I loved the dynamic between their "Cool Girl" and "Chief Jock" techniques.
The thing about daydreams is that they don’t last. One brush up against reality, and that’s the end of them.
This book is about the consequences of manipulating other people's lives by creating scripts for them to live through and getting caught up in stories we create for ourselves. Even Conway, who despises people who live in a fantasy world, has conjured up stories of her own and tries to uphold a certain image. The Trespasser is an interesting story from beginning to end with fascinating characters. It's detailed in a way that made me feel like part of the squad and like I was invested in the outcome. I regret putting off this series for so long, but I'm so happy I have five more of these to read!
______________________________
I received this book for free from Penguin Random House First to Read in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The publication date is October 4, 2016.
April 2, 2024
Tana French’s The Trespasser follows Antoinette Conway, a jaded detective on the murder squad. After all the excitement of her initial job transplant, she’s dealt with near-constant racist and sexist harassment, and essentially only worked on basic domestic cases, which she and her partner Stephen close quickly and cleanly.
The death of Aislinn Murray at first seems like a clear cut case: she was preparing for a romantic dinner with a boyfriend, Rory, the likely suspect. The boyfriend, after all, is a common perpetrator. But as pressure from the squad builds up to close the case quickly, the two are forced to consider whether maybe, there’s something more going on here.
Antoinette Conway is such an interesting character to follow. She’s sarcastic and hard-edged, even more so than some previous members, but always sympathetic: she’s loving towards her partner and sympathetic towards people when they deserve it. Though she tries to cover up these bits of caring, even within her narration, they shine through; it’s easy to get invested in her relationships and personal struggles, hoping she’ll be given the chance to breathe out and also desperately hoping she’ll win, if only to prove them wrong.
Stephen Moran and Antoinette Conway have my favorite detective pairing of the three Tana French novels I’ve read so far. His happy-go-lucky spirit contrasts perfectly with her more jaded attitude; they feel very Holmes-and-Watson-esque. Their final interrogation scene together, especially, is deeply satisfying and interesting.
Tana French’s writing is the definition of slow burn in the best way. Her red herrings are never quite out of left field; instead, they lead you in the wrong direction, but give you the information you need to find the right one. (I never succeed.) This specific mystery goes through so many excellent loops in such an interesting way. Aislinn Murray is a more interesting character than she seems, and discovering her origins kept me enthralled. I liked getting to know the victim just as I got to know the detectives fighting to save her.
Even though I initially rated this four stars, I keep flashing back to how much I loved the experience of reading this book; how enthralled it kept me, how close on the edge of my seat, how I didn’t guess the ending at all, how satisfying I found it. I’m bumping this up to five stars and will certainly be keeping it in my mind.
Dublin Murder Squad: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
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The death of Aislinn Murray at first seems like a clear cut case: she was preparing for a romantic dinner with a boyfriend, Rory, the likely suspect. The boyfriend, after all, is a common perpetrator. But as pressure from the squad builds up to close the case quickly, the two are forced to consider whether maybe, there’s something more going on here.
Antoinette Conway is such an interesting character to follow. She’s sarcastic and hard-edged, even more so than some previous members, but always sympathetic: she’s loving towards her partner and sympathetic towards people when they deserve it. Though she tries to cover up these bits of caring, even within her narration, they shine through; it’s easy to get invested in her relationships and personal struggles, hoping she’ll be given the chance to breathe out and also desperately hoping she’ll win, if only to prove them wrong.
Stephen Moran and Antoinette Conway have my favorite detective pairing of the three Tana French novels I’ve read so far. His happy-go-lucky spirit contrasts perfectly with her more jaded attitude; they feel very Holmes-and-Watson-esque. Their final interrogation scene together, especially, is deeply satisfying and interesting.
Tana French’s writing is the definition of slow burn in the best way. Her red herrings are never quite out of left field; instead, they lead you in the wrong direction, but give you the information you need to find the right one. (I never succeed.) This specific mystery goes through so many excellent loops in such an interesting way. Aislinn Murray is a more interesting character than she seems, and discovering her origins kept me enthralled. I liked getting to know the victim just as I got to know the detectives fighting to save her.
Even though I initially rated this four stars, I keep flashing back to how much I loved the experience of reading this book; how enthralled it kept me, how close on the edge of my seat, how I didn’t guess the ending at all, how satisfying I found it. I’m bumping this up to five stars and will certainly be keeping it in my mind.
Dublin Murder Squad: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
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December 4, 2017
Ugh, this was such a disappointment. A fairly uninteresting crime. A lot of early focus on someone who obviously didn't commit the crime. An uninspired wild goose chase that means that by the middle of the book, you still don't know much more than you did 220 pages ago. Absolutely ENDLESS conversations and very little action. Interviews with suspects where murder detectives' tactics are explained over and over and over again. A protagonist who was SO unlikable for so much of the book that when she finally had her redemption, I was well past caring. A LOOOONG conversation with the victim's best friend where she explains absolutely everything for us. An anticlimactic reveal and then pages and pages spent wrapping it all up. Major overuse of the word "hole." The only thing I liked about The Trespasser was the conversation at the very end between the gaffer and one of the detectives, but it was definitely too little, too late.
Don't get me wrong—a bad Tana French novel is still head and shoulders above most mysteries/thrillers out there, but by the standard French herself has set this is not a particularly good book, and definitely not gripping in the way her books usually are. My least favorite in the series by a very wide margin.
Don't get me wrong—a bad Tana French novel is still head and shoulders above most mysteries/thrillers out there, but by the standard French herself has set this is not a particularly good book, and definitely not gripping in the way her books usually are. My least favorite in the series by a very wide margin.
October 7, 2016
This novel in the Tana French series about Irish murder detective Antoinette Conway is universally loved and considered among her best in a long line of terrific mystery novels. Why? There is little action in this novel. It is a novel of psychologies and pathologies.
The writing brings us deeply into the internal politics of a murder squad and expresses the difficulty of a woman operating in a rough environment hung with grisly soul-destroying murders. The male camaraderie inside the squad means that little concession is made for women with different histories, priorities, manners, and habits. Other women detectives Antoinette had known didn’t want to fight the scum-stain perps outside and their own colleagues inside. Antoinette is in the middle of making that very decision for herself during the period of the novel.
Antoinette is driven and bright, but she also has a chip on her shoulder that may lead her to attribute motives to colleagues inappropriately. Certainly she has been hazed by older detectives, so she has some cause for paranoia, but not everyone wants her to fail. In this novel she is chosen along with Stephen, a man everyone likes, to handle a case that looks straightforward…and turns out anything but.
French does the thought processes and conversation and hidden meanings so well that even from this distance we feel the cut of the sly put-downs and deflections, and the terror of facing very experienced actors in the interview rooms. The older male detectives in this novel reveal that they couldn't care less why a suspect might commit a crime, and are just happy to put someone down for the crime if it increases their solve-rate, whether or not it makes perfect sense.
Antoinette pursues the psychological in all her interviews. Cops conducting interviews must mask their feelings and intentions and the suspect must survive insinuation or barrage on their most closely held secrets. It is hurtful on both sides. One can only be steeped in slime for so long before it feels like it covers everything.
It’s French’s language that is so entrancing: her fresh insults and filthy descriptions of perps and coworkers stun us into laughter, making the old story of murder feel new. She also leads us astray several times, mentioning red herrings that we hang onto long past the time we should have jettisoned them.
Antoinette is able to twist us around her finger because we trust her vision. She can be cruel, dismissive, and suspicious but she goes after bad guys like a rottweiler. We'd want her on our side, but we wouldn't want her suspecting us of doing wrong. Readers convince themselves she is the honest and upstanding cop, unwilling to close ranks with male colleagues she doesn’t trust even as we begin to wonder if she isn’t being unreasonable. How can one person have so much going on inside? French almost loses our sympathy for Antoinette with her anger and admissions of her self-deceptions.
In this case, a young woman Aislinn has a makeover into a slim, slick magazine image of herself and ends up dead. The case has the appearance of an off-the-shelf “domestic.” Antoinette and Stephen initially feel disrespected when they are specifically chosen for the assignment, but their wide-open instincts turn up pieces that do not fit in a point-and-solve case.
One element of the story that left me feeling unsure was the thread that involved Antoinette’s father. A big piece of Antoinette’s identity involves her dark (what used to be called swarthy) skin and largish nose, presumably from her father’s side, and the notion of Antoinette as fatherless child who struggled with belonging.
Her father appears in this novel, and we are meant to notice his accent and clothes are high-tone British, and his facial features resemble his daughter's, but we get nothing of him as a person. French clearly left this thread for another day, but why introduce him at all? And why doesn’t the mere sight of him inspire a quenchless curiosity in Antoinette? He clearly wants to make contact, though in a queer and underhanded way. Is he a spook? Will French take Antoinette on a wider world tour in future novels and expand her reach into international intrigue? Is he the trespasser of the title? Or is the trespasser one on the squad?
I listened to the Penguin Audio production of this book, read by Hilda Fay. The Irish accents are the beauty of the listening experience, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss them. The fresh insults Antoinette thinks up to describe a person she disdains can be particularly toothsome in Irish brogue. And Fay does Breslin's greasy speaking style to perfection. Highly recommended.
-----------------
A friend sent a link to a review in the NewYorker by Laura Miller, books and culture columnist for Slate.
The writing brings us deeply into the internal politics of a murder squad and expresses the difficulty of a woman operating in a rough environment hung with grisly soul-destroying murders. The male camaraderie inside the squad means that little concession is made for women with different histories, priorities, manners, and habits. Other women detectives Antoinette had known didn’t want to fight the scum-stain perps outside and their own colleagues inside. Antoinette is in the middle of making that very decision for herself during the period of the novel.
Antoinette is driven and bright, but she also has a chip on her shoulder that may lead her to attribute motives to colleagues inappropriately. Certainly she has been hazed by older detectives, so she has some cause for paranoia, but not everyone wants her to fail. In this novel she is chosen along with Stephen, a man everyone likes, to handle a case that looks straightforward…and turns out anything but.
French does the thought processes and conversation and hidden meanings so well that even from this distance we feel the cut of the sly put-downs and deflections, and the terror of facing very experienced actors in the interview rooms. The older male detectives in this novel reveal that they couldn't care less why a suspect might commit a crime, and are just happy to put someone down for the crime if it increases their solve-rate, whether or not it makes perfect sense.
Antoinette pursues the psychological in all her interviews. Cops conducting interviews must mask their feelings and intentions and the suspect must survive insinuation or barrage on their most closely held secrets. It is hurtful on both sides. One can only be steeped in slime for so long before it feels like it covers everything.
It’s French’s language that is so entrancing: her fresh insults and filthy descriptions of perps and coworkers stun us into laughter, making the old story of murder feel new. She also leads us astray several times, mentioning red herrings that we hang onto long past the time we should have jettisoned them.
Antoinette is able to twist us around her finger because we trust her vision. She can be cruel, dismissive, and suspicious but she goes after bad guys like a rottweiler. We'd want her on our side, but we wouldn't want her suspecting us of doing wrong. Readers convince themselves she is the honest and upstanding cop, unwilling to close ranks with male colleagues she doesn’t trust even as we begin to wonder if she isn’t being unreasonable. How can one person have so much going on inside? French almost loses our sympathy for Antoinette with her anger and admissions of her self-deceptions.
In this case, a young woman Aislinn has a makeover into a slim, slick magazine image of herself and ends up dead. The case has the appearance of an off-the-shelf “domestic.” Antoinette and Stephen initially feel disrespected when they are specifically chosen for the assignment, but their wide-open instincts turn up pieces that do not fit in a point-and-solve case.
One element of the story that left me feeling unsure was the thread that involved Antoinette’s father. A big piece of Antoinette’s identity involves her dark (what used to be called swarthy) skin and largish nose, presumably from her father’s side, and the notion of Antoinette as fatherless child who struggled with belonging.
Her father appears in this novel, and we are meant to notice his accent and clothes are high-tone British, and his facial features resemble his daughter's, but we get nothing of him as a person. French clearly left this thread for another day, but why introduce him at all? And why doesn’t the mere sight of him inspire a quenchless curiosity in Antoinette? He clearly wants to make contact, though in a queer and underhanded way. Is he a spook? Will French take Antoinette on a wider world tour in future novels and expand her reach into international intrigue? Is he the trespasser of the title? Or is the trespasser one on the squad?
I listened to the Penguin Audio production of this book, read by Hilda Fay. The Irish accents are the beauty of the listening experience, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss them. The fresh insults Antoinette thinks up to describe a person she disdains can be particularly toothsome in Irish brogue. And Fay does Breslin's greasy speaking style to perfection. Highly recommended.
-----------------
A friend sent a link to a review in the NewYorker by Laura Miller, books and culture columnist for Slate.
September 7, 2020
September 2020 Re-read: Short review for a book that has too much to talk about for me without writing a dissertation. I just find Antoinette Conway to be such an interesting narrator, and I love the way French plays off Conway's weaknesses with the murder of Aislinn Murray. I had actually forgotten almost everything about this book, except how thorny Conway was as a narrator, and how her paranoia .
I had also forgotten how angry Conway made me in her contempt for other people showing what she views as weakness: desire to connect, showing emotions, needing other people. She is utterly dismissive of anyone who even shows a smidgen of vulnerability. What I like about French's execution of this character is that she doesn't learn some very special lesson. At the end of the book, she's still the same person, but her perspective has shifted a little. There's a great contrast between the boy's club atmosphere of the Murder Squad, and how insular it feels, and Conway's extreme insistence on independence.
There's a lot in here about how the stories we have in our heads affect the way we view other people, and situations. And then French takes that to another level when she ties it in with how the idea of how your actions can write somebody else's story, with what happened to Aislinn as a child, and with what she in turn did to .
Five star book is still five stars.
November 2016: It’s almost ridiculous how easy she makes it look, writing a book this good. I don’t even know what to say anymore about her books. They are all just so, so good. And the way she jumps from character to character each book gives her room to play around with different structures and themes, and yet still stay within the framework of a murder mystery novel.
I love murder mystery novels, but I don’t love these books because of the mysteries (although I don’t think her style would work as well in any other genre). I love them for the characters, and the way French writes her way into their heads. She makes them so human it hurts.
This one features Antoinette Conway, who we met last book. Conway is a hard lady to get to know, and she doesn’t make it easy for you to be in her head. She assumes the worst about people, and lets her own issues color her judgments of the victim whose murder she’s trying to solve. She’s also untrusting and contemptuous of people who show their vulnerability. It’s at times infuriating. But she’s good at her job, and she’s a fighter. It’s a fascinating portrait of a complex mind.
Ultimately, this is a book about how the stories we tell ourselves shape the way we see the world. It’s a theme that works ridiculously well in the context of a murder. The Trespasser isn’t my favorite of her books, others have hit harder and more deeply for me, but I can find no fault with it.
I waited too long to write this review, of course, so I’ve forgotten almost everything I had to say after finishing it two months ago. All that remains now is that I loved it, and I’ll be reading it again, and I can’t wait for the next book to be released in (hopefully, if she holds to pattern) 2018.
Initial pre-review January 2016: Hi. Hiiiiiiiiiii. Hello. Hello, my lovely. Soon we will be together.
I had also forgotten how angry Conway made me in her contempt for other people showing what she views as weakness: desire to connect, showing emotions, needing other people. She is utterly dismissive of anyone who even shows a smidgen of vulnerability. What I like about French's execution of this character is that she doesn't learn some very special lesson. At the end of the book, she's still the same person, but her perspective has shifted a little. There's a great contrast between the boy's club atmosphere of the Murder Squad, and how insular it feels, and Conway's extreme insistence on independence.
There's a lot in here about how the stories we have in our heads affect the way we view other people, and situations. And then French takes that to another level when she ties it in with how the idea of how your actions can write somebody else's story, with what happened to Aislinn as a child, and with what she in turn did to .
Five star book is still five stars.
November 2016: It’s almost ridiculous how easy she makes it look, writing a book this good. I don’t even know what to say anymore about her books. They are all just so, so good. And the way she jumps from character to character each book gives her room to play around with different structures and themes, and yet still stay within the framework of a murder mystery novel.
I love murder mystery novels, but I don’t love these books because of the mysteries (although I don’t think her style would work as well in any other genre). I love them for the characters, and the way French writes her way into their heads. She makes them so human it hurts.
This one features Antoinette Conway, who we met last book. Conway is a hard lady to get to know, and she doesn’t make it easy for you to be in her head. She assumes the worst about people, and lets her own issues color her judgments of the victim whose murder she’s trying to solve. She’s also untrusting and contemptuous of people who show their vulnerability. It’s at times infuriating. But she’s good at her job, and she’s a fighter. It’s a fascinating portrait of a complex mind.
Ultimately, this is a book about how the stories we tell ourselves shape the way we see the world. It’s a theme that works ridiculously well in the context of a murder. The Trespasser isn’t my favorite of her books, others have hit harder and more deeply for me, but I can find no fault with it.
I waited too long to write this review, of course, so I’ve forgotten almost everything I had to say after finishing it two months ago. All that remains now is that I loved it, and I’ll be reading it again, and I can’t wait for the next book to be released in (hopefully, if she holds to pattern) 2018.
Initial pre-review January 2016: Hi. Hiiiiiiiiiii. Hello. Hello, my lovely. Soon we will be together.
June 30, 2018
I am ashamed to admit that this is my first Tana French novel. I have heard and read such great things about her and so I jumped at the chance to read and review “The Trespasser”.
At 449 pages this is not a quick read, but at no time did I think there was any part of the story that should or could be shortened. Ms. French’s characters are very well described and I loved getting to know Antoinette Conway, the female detective in an otherwise male dominated department. She is the only detective that has made it to the Murder Squad. She and her partner Steve Moran are are an ideal match. He is everything that she isn’t; he’s happy to please people, he’s optimistic and idealistic and very smart, he also understand Antoinette very well, i.e. she always “must” be the driver, she can be verbally abusive but he knows how to deal with her and respect her.
Antoinette has been on the squad for two years and is sick of being harassed and given cases that require little skill. She has been thinking of resigning and finding a new profession. They are assigned to the Aislinn Murray case which at first seemed like another easy domestic violence case. The thought was that she was killed by her boyfriend, but when they start digging they start to create the person that Aislinn really was and the intrigue that she became involved in.
There are many other well developed characters; Antoinette’s best friend, Lucy who in the end is extremely helpful in solving the case, the experienced detective Breslin who is assigned to “help” them with the case; their superintendent O’Kelley who assigned them to the case and detective McCann best buddies with Breslin. All of these characters are well thought out in this intricately plotted police procedural.
I will not go through the plot of this novel, there are other reviews if you are interested in that, you can also read the blurb about the book.
What I liked best about this novel was it’s main character Antoinette Conway. We get to know her so well, back to when her mother never told her the truth about her father but instead invented stories from him being an Egyptian prince, a famous guitarist and even a medical student. She suffered from some aspects of her childhood and it’s one reason that drove her to become a police detective. She is extremely good at her job.
I will look forward to the next installment of the Dublin Murder Squad and I hope that you will pick up this great mystery/police procedural, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. The writing is great, the plotting is wonderful and the characters believable, flawed and well developed.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher.
I'M REPOSTING MY REVIEW BECAUSE THIS TALENTED AUTHOR HAS A NEW BOOK COMING OUT THIS FALL TITLED "THE WITCH ELM" SOUNDS GREAT, CHECK IT OUT :)
At 449 pages this is not a quick read, but at no time did I think there was any part of the story that should or could be shortened. Ms. French’s characters are very well described and I loved getting to know Antoinette Conway, the female detective in an otherwise male dominated department. She is the only detective that has made it to the Murder Squad. She and her partner Steve Moran are are an ideal match. He is everything that she isn’t; he’s happy to please people, he’s optimistic and idealistic and very smart, he also understand Antoinette very well, i.e. she always “must” be the driver, she can be verbally abusive but he knows how to deal with her and respect her.
Antoinette has been on the squad for two years and is sick of being harassed and given cases that require little skill. She has been thinking of resigning and finding a new profession. They are assigned to the Aislinn Murray case which at first seemed like another easy domestic violence case. The thought was that she was killed by her boyfriend, but when they start digging they start to create the person that Aislinn really was and the intrigue that she became involved in.
There are many other well developed characters; Antoinette’s best friend, Lucy who in the end is extremely helpful in solving the case, the experienced detective Breslin who is assigned to “help” them with the case; their superintendent O’Kelley who assigned them to the case and detective McCann best buddies with Breslin. All of these characters are well thought out in this intricately plotted police procedural.
I will not go through the plot of this novel, there are other reviews if you are interested in that, you can also read the blurb about the book.
What I liked best about this novel was it’s main character Antoinette Conway. We get to know her so well, back to when her mother never told her the truth about her father but instead invented stories from him being an Egyptian prince, a famous guitarist and even a medical student. She suffered from some aspects of her childhood and it’s one reason that drove her to become a police detective. She is extremely good at her job.
I will look forward to the next installment of the Dublin Murder Squad and I hope that you will pick up this great mystery/police procedural, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. The writing is great, the plotting is wonderful and the characters believable, flawed and well developed.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher.
I'M REPOSTING MY REVIEW BECAUSE THIS TALENTED AUTHOR HAS A NEW BOOK COMING OUT THIS FALL TITLED "THE WITCH ELM" SOUNDS GREAT, CHECK IT OUT :)
August 14, 2016
This is the 6th book in the Dublin Murder Squad series by author Tana French but they can honestly be read as stand alone's and in any order.
I have already read the previous 5 books in the series and thoroughly enjoyed them so it was no real surprise that yet again I was in awe of Tana French. I knew very early on that I was going to like this book, the characters are exceptionally developed and the plot expertly paced, feeding you glimpses of the truth and more than a few red herrings.
This novel features Antoinette Conway, the tough, abrasive detective from the previous novel 'The Secret Place' but it doesn't matter if you haven't read it. Her partner is Stephen Moran who appears to be the only person in the squad she actually gets on with. Antoinette doesn't get on with the other members at all and there is a campaign in the squad to get rid of her. They win a case that appears to be a straight forward one, a lovers tiff but they realise there's more going on. There are signs that there are things going on within the squad and they need to decide whether someone on their own squad is trying to push them towards the obvious solution and away from nagging questions. They have to work out whether this is just an escalation in the drive to get rid of her - or whether there's something deeper and darker going on.
I found this novel to be quite a long read which I enjoyed because I didn't feel there was any rush to get to the end and instead every relationship was explained so well by the end I felt I knew the character inside out. The plot moves around and there were times when I thought I knew the finish long before the actual end only to be left yet again surprised. I love Tana French's style, well thought out stories with gritty believable characters that form in your head as if you are watching them on film.
I gave it a 4 star rating but on another day could have easily given it 5. A very good read that won't disappoint her fans.
I would like to thank Net Galley and Hodder & Stoughton for an early copy of this novel in exchange for a honest review.
I have already read the previous 5 books in the series and thoroughly enjoyed them so it was no real surprise that yet again I was in awe of Tana French. I knew very early on that I was going to like this book, the characters are exceptionally developed and the plot expertly paced, feeding you glimpses of the truth and more than a few red herrings.
This novel features Antoinette Conway, the tough, abrasive detective from the previous novel 'The Secret Place' but it doesn't matter if you haven't read it. Her partner is Stephen Moran who appears to be the only person in the squad she actually gets on with. Antoinette doesn't get on with the other members at all and there is a campaign in the squad to get rid of her. They win a case that appears to be a straight forward one, a lovers tiff but they realise there's more going on. There are signs that there are things going on within the squad and they need to decide whether someone on their own squad is trying to push them towards the obvious solution and away from nagging questions. They have to work out whether this is just an escalation in the drive to get rid of her - or whether there's something deeper and darker going on.
I found this novel to be quite a long read which I enjoyed because I didn't feel there was any rush to get to the end and instead every relationship was explained so well by the end I felt I knew the character inside out. The plot moves around and there were times when I thought I knew the finish long before the actual end only to be left yet again surprised. I love Tana French's style, well thought out stories with gritty believable characters that form in your head as if you are watching them on film.
I gave it a 4 star rating but on another day could have easily given it 5. A very good read that won't disappoint her fans.
I would like to thank Net Galley and Hodder & Stoughton for an early copy of this novel in exchange for a honest review.
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