TANA. FRENCH

Dublin Murder Squad: 3

Faithful Place

Tana French

Lara Engle

Tana French is some kind of magic. She took my least favorite character from The Likeness and then made me love him. Once again, in Faithful Place, she has broken my heart and mended it with melancholy. Dare I hope that after all the tragedy Frank has endured, he might have a happy life?

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was nineteen, growing up poor in Dublin's inner city and living crammed into a small flat with his family on Faithful Place. But he had his sights set on a lot more. He and his girl, Rosie Daly, were all set to run away to London together, get married, get good jobs, break away from factory work and poverty and their old lives.

But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd given him the brush-off--probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. H never went home again.

Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.


Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he’s a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he’s willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.
(front flap)

A Novel

Zoey Mikalatos

I think this one was probably the saddest Tana French novel that I've read so far, especially considering Frank's complete involvement in the entire book. Going into the novel, based off of The Likeness, I didn't like Frank very much. By the end of the book he's my favorite detective so far.

"Some people should never meet. The fallout spreads too wide and gets into the ground for much too long."

shellybn

This was an OK book, but it centered around my least favorite character from "The Likeness". The solution was pretty easy to figure out, but I did not like the lack of resolution in the end.

Emir Andrés Ibañez

Frank y Rosie habían quedado en reunirse en una casa abandonada al final de la calle Faithful Place. Se irían del país y dejarían atrás a sus familias, dispuestos a iniciar una vida juntos. Pero aquella noche Rosie no se presentó. Una nota dejó perplejo a Frank y decidió seguir adelante con su vida... Veinte años después, encuentran una maleta con las pertenencias de Rosie en ese mismo lugar. ¿Qué pasó realmente aquella noche?
Tana French nos ofrece una nueva novela que desde afuera tiene toda la pinta de ser el policial de fórmula, pero no es así. A esta altura del partido ya todos sabemos que lo que hace esta autora va más allá de los policiales comunes y corrientes. Tana construye unos personajes inolvidables al mismo tiempo que te mete de lleno en la realidad sociocultural de Irlanda y te ofrece un argumento de la puta madre. A cada paso del camino se reivindica como una de mis escritoras favoritas.

Lori Keenom

I really enjoyed this book. It's about a detective, Frank Mackey, whose girlfriend disappears on the night they were suppose to runaway together. He is called back to his hometown and his estranged family when Rosie's remains are found 22 years later. It really kept me guessing till the end. Tana French can really write a good mystery.

Shreerag Plakazhi

Tana French is quickly growing into my favourite contemporary crime writer. What makes her books so good is that they are almost always lit fiction hidden as crime fiction. She has an understanding of humans that is unparalleled, and what is missing in terms of suspense she makes up for in solid motives. All this and she's only getting better.

Laura

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Les Reynolds

Loved it. Hooked me from the first few pages, and I was enthralled all the way along.

Claudia

Michele Papa

The course of Frank Mackey's life was set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The moment his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as they had planned. Frank never heard from her again. Twenty years on, Frank is still in Dublin, working as an undercover cop. He's cut all ties with his dysfunctional family. Until his sister calls to say that Rosie's suitcase has been found. Frank embarks on a journey into his past that demands he reevaluate everything he believes to be true.

Faithful Place Dublin Murder Squad: 3

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