Faithful Place is a mystery and the backstory of Frank Mackey, the undercover agent readers first met in The Likeness.
Honestly, I didn’t like him, as a character, very much in the last book. This installment gave me understanding about why he’s so gruff and generally unkind. A difficult and abusive childhood has taken its toll on him.
There’s also the small matter of a broken heart over his teenage sweetheart, who never showed up the night they were going to run away together.
“The night faded to a thin sad gray and round the corner a milk cart clattered over cobblestones towards the dairy, and I was still waiting for Rosie Daly at the top of Faithful Place.” pg 13, ebook
But it turns out, Frank’s past isn’t as straight forward as all that. And that’s what he discovers in this book.
“No matter how good you are, this world is always going to be better at this game. It’s more cunning than you are, it’s faster and it’s a whole lot more ruthless. All you can do is try to keep up, know your weak spots and never stop expecting the sucker punch.” pg 14, ebook
The Dublin Murder Squad series continues to surprise me with how much I enjoy it. Tana French is a master at building suspense throughout the stories. Her world doesn’t get stale because you (at least so far) follow a different character in each tale, learning a bit more about them, and then moving on to the next character.
“I was right to enjoy the normal world while I had it. Deep down, even while I was shaking my fist at the sky and vowing never to darken the cobbles of that hellhole again, I must have known the Place was going to take that as a challenge.” pg 141, ebook
French manages to convey visceral and surprising emotions in her stories, which I love. It makes the hair raise on my arms and gives me goosebumps. I find myself thinking about key plot points when I wake up in the middle of the night, wondering what’s going to happen next. Not many books have that effect on me.
Her characters are complex. They’re not angels, but they’re not demons. They’re something in between, very human, and they feel completely real.
“If you don’t know this by now, mate, you’d better write it down and learn it by heart: the right thing is not always the same as what’s in your pretty little rule book.” pg 158, ebook
And there’s always a moment in her novels, or sometimes two moments, that flips the story on its head. In this one, when that moment came, I had to read the passage twice and I even said aloud, “You’re kidding, right?”
Now, you don’t know this about me, but I am a completely silent reader. I never talk to the books. French has made me into one of “those” readers — a talking reader. That’s a pretty big deal.
Recommended for readers who like their mysteries to be thrilling and books that draw you in so much that you forget the real world for a time.
Thanks for reading!
- The Book of Hedge Druidry: A Complete Guide for the Solitary Seeker by Joanna van der Hoeven
- Maestros by Steve Skroce (Writer/Illustrator), Dave Stewart (Colorist), Fonografiks (Letterer)
- Trance-Portation Learning to Navigate the Inner World by Diana L. Paxson
- Ecstasy Through Tantra by Jonn Mumford
- A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1) by Sarah J. Maas