I finished this book today and it was a pretty good read. Like I said before, I have read Tana French's other novels (In the Woods, and The Likeness) so I was excited when this one came out.
The story follows Frank Mackey (who was also a character in The Likeness) as he goes back to his family neighborhood after being gone for twenty-two years. He goes back because a suitcase was found in the chimney of an abandoned house, and the suitcase belonged to his first love, Rosie Daly. She disappeared the night they were going to run off to England to get married. They were doing this in secret because Rosie's father did not like Frank because of bad blood between him and Frank's father from when they were growing up. When Rosie didn't show up the night they were supposed to leave Frank thought she changed her mind and dumped him after he found a note from her in the abandoned house. Although Rosie was not with him, he still left but did not go to England, and became a police officer in the Undercover unit in Ireland.
He had no contact with any of his family until one day, when he was a new cop his sister Jackie, was mugged and he took the report. She is the only one that he had any contact with. He swore Jackie to secrecy about his marriage, his daughter Holly, and his subsequent divorce. Although he doesn't know it until later, Jackie, with the permission of Frank's ex wife, Olivia, brings Holly to meet her uncles, aunt and grandparents and continued doing so for a whole year.
Frank gets a call from Jackie saying some kids found a suitcase in the chimney at an abandoned house in 'Faithful Place' (which is the name of his neighborhood). Although he doesn't want to, he goes back to investigate. Shay, his older brother is not happy to see him. He is jealous that Frank got away from their neighborhood, abusive father and crazy mother and didn't have to take care of the other siblings. But Jackie, Kevin and Carmel are glad that he is back.
Then the decomposed body of Rosie Daly is found in the basement of the house where they found the suitcase and Frank realizes that Rosie didn't dump him. As Frank is not officially investigating the murder he can't help but be obsessed with finding out the truth. A couple of days later his younger brother Kevin is found dead in the garden of the abandoned house. While everyone else believes he either fell out of an upstairs window or jumped, Frank does not believe this. I'm not going to spoil the ending, so I am going to stop here.
The book, overall, was pretty good. I like how it read like Frank was telling the story a while later (although it never specifically said how much later). It seemed almost like a journal entry. The murderer is a little obvious, but the list of suspects isn't that large, so it wasn't too hard to figure out. One part that I did not like was how once Frank knew who the killer was, it seemed slow to come to a conclusion, and that conclusion wasn't all that great. But, I would read it again, and think it is pretty good.
Grade 3.5 out of 5 stars
I wish I was going with you!!!!!!
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