A notably literary series of Police Procedural thrillers by Irish author Tana French, set in post-90s Ireland and dealing with the activities of Dublin's (fictional) murder squad.
Beginning with French's debut novel In the Woods in 2007, the series is somewhat unique in Detective Fiction for not being centered on a single protagonist who solves multiple cases from book to book. After each installment is concluded and the case it involves done and dusted, a secondary character takes the wheel as first-person narrator. 2008's The Likeness is told from the perspective of Cassie Maddox, who first appeared as Rob Ryan's partner in In the Woods; 2010's Faithful Place concerns Cassie's former boss Frank Mackey, who was a major player in The Likeness. 2012's Broken Harbour introduces us to the inner world of Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, Frank's straight-edged foil in Faithful Place. And so on.
This switching isn't just a gimmick; it's a vital condition on which French's Signature Style hinges. In the words of her first protagonist, Rob Ryan, "Every detective has a certain kind of case that he or she finds almost unbearable, against which the usual shield of practiced professional detachment turns brittle and untrustworthy." Each novel finds a character dealing with a case whose outcome is destined to change his or her life forever, whether because of a personal stake or simply because the details of the story resonate uncomfortably with his or her worldview or history.
A TV adaptation, known as Dublin Murders, has aired in North America and in Europe in October/November 2019 and they're based on In the Woods and The Likeness.
Books in this series include:
- In the Woods
- The Likeness
- Faithful Place
- Broken Harbour (US: Broken Harbor)
- The Secret Place
- The Trespasser
The series as a whole contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Frank's father from Faithful Place was a frequently unemployed alcoholic who verbally and physically abused his wife and children.
- Ambiguous Disorder: Dina Kennedy has long periods of almost-normality followed by breakdowns, strong mood swings, paranoia, and hallucinations (not to mention probably PTSD from her mother committing suicide and trying to bring her along), but has never had a diagnosis that stuck.
- Jessica Devlin in In the Woods is practically nonverbal and generally seems extremely out of it. Although there's speculation that she might be autistic, it's hard to say how much of her behavior is the result of trauma.
- Animal Nemesis: During the months leading up to his death, Patrick Spain, the father of the murdered family in Broken Harbour, was obsessively trying to catch an unknown "animal" that he was hearing, and finding evidence of, in the house. By the end of the story it's heavily implied that he was undergoing Sanity Slippage and that the "animal" never existed.
- Artistic License – Geography: French explains in the notes for Faithful Place that while Frank's childhood home is based on real neighborhoods, she both invented it out of whole cloth and significantly rearranged a few chunks of Dublin to fit it in, so that she wouldn't step on a real place's history.
- Attention Whore: In In the Woods, Rosalind, which was what made her hate her sister Katy, a brilliant dancer who was on her way to study at the Royal Ballet School.
- Bittersweet Ending: As good as it ever gets in this series, usually heavy on the bitter.
- In Faithful Place, the murder is solved, Frank and Liv are reconciling, but his family has been totally blown apart by the revelation his brother is a murderer and his eight-year-old daughter is a key witness.
- In The Secret Place, Moran and Conway have formed their partnership and netted a place for Moran on Murder, but Holly's tight-knit group of friends is ruined.
- In The Trespasser, probably the sweetest, Moran and Conway's friendship is repaired and the people harassing Conway are off the squad, but O'Kelly is going to be forced into retirement because a corrupt detective tried to cover up a murder on his watch.
- Bungled Suicide: In Broken Harbour, Jenny Spain, the murderer, survives her subsequent suicide attempt and is therefore believed to be one of the victims.
- Cain and Abel: Rosalind and Katy in In the Woods.
- Frank and his brother Shay in Faithful Place never got along when they were children and still have a very poor relationship as adults. Frank sees his brother as a self-martyring asshole who hates people being happier than him. Shay sees his brother as an ungrateful brat with no sense of responsibility to his family. But it comes to a head when Frank finds out Shay killed his girlfriend Rosie and their brother Kevin, the former in a scuffle from an argument to stop Frank from leaving, and the latter to cover up the former crime.
- Corrupt Cop: In The Trespasser, Moran spends a good bit of the book kicking around a theory about a gang hit and cops on the take. While this turns out to be incorrect, there is corruption involved, in that another detective committed the murder and his partner is trying to pin it on the victim's boyfriend.
- Dark and Troubled Past: This seems to be a requirement for being on the squad. Ranges from the hardships that come with growing up poor (Moran and Conway) to being the sole survivor of a child massacre (Rob).
- Decoy Protagonist: It seems that in Broken Harbour, Richie is being set up as the protagonist of the next book, according to the structure of the series. Similarly, Stephen in Faithful Place, having at least as much involvement in the story as Scorcher. Later subverted when he returns in The Secret Place
- Defective Detective: Pick a protagonist, any protagonist.
- Divorce Is Temporary: Frank and Liv. Justified in that a lot of the issues that drove them apart (such as Frank still being in love with Rosie) are external rather than due to a fundamental incompatibility and get resolved.
- Doomed by Canon: The Likeness takes place after the arc of In the Woods but before the epilogue, meaning that Cassie's engagement to Sam and continued estrangement from the Murder Squad are a done deal.
- Doom Magnet: Holly Mackey somehow ends up in the middle of two murder cases before she's even eighteen.
- Downer Ending: Oh, yes.
- Into the Woods ends with every single plotline completely crashing and burning, even the extremely minor ones, like the archaeologists who were protesting the highway's construction over their site.
- Broken Harbor may end with the murder solved, but Richie's been busted back to uniform, Scorcher forces himself into retirement, and now the murderer and her remaining family are going to have to spend the rest of their lives with the fact she killed her own husband and children.
- Dysfunction Junction: The Murder Squad themselves and (naturally) the figures in their cases.
- Family Theme Naming: In In the Woods, the Devlin sisters, Rosalind, Katherine and Jessica. When Rob makes the connection, their father, Jonathan Devlin, reveals that he was on a self-improvement kick early in his marriage which included reading the complete works of Shakespeare.
- A Father to His Men: Despite his less than stellar first impression from In The Woods, O'Kelly turns out to be this in the end, legitimately caring about his squad and their well-being. It's most apparent in The Trespasser where he takes responsibility for bringing in McCann in order to spare Conway and Moran's reputations, and accepts that this means he will lose his job in the process for allowing his misconduct to happen under his leadership.
- Hippie Parents: Alicia Rowan, Jamie Rowan's mother in In the Woods, was a hippie single mom, which made her stand out in 1980s Ireland. Rob notes that she used to give Jamie yogurt with wheat germ in it, to which Cassie expresses surprise that you could even get wheat germ in the 80s.
- I Can Change My Beloved: Frank's mother in A Faithful Place thought his father would shape up and become better after they got married. He never did.
- Karma Houdini: Rosalind in In the Woods.
- Lady Macbeth: In In the Woods, Rosalind was this to Damien.
- Last-Name Basis: Cassie is just about the only person on the squad who uses people's first names as a matter of course.
- Love Is in the Air: In Faithful Place, Frank's explanation for the decidedly optimistic assumption he made about the strange noises he overheard the night Rosie disappeared:I think I believed Rosie and I were so wild about each other that it got in the air like a shimmering drug, that night when everything was coming together, and swirled through the Liberties sending everyone who breathed it into a frenzy: wrecked factory workers reaching for each other in their sleep, teenagers on corners suddenly kissing like their lives depended on it, old couples spitting out their falsies and ripping off each other’s flannel nighties.
- Magical Realism: In The Secret Place, Holly and her friends get some minor magical abilities, seemingly through the power of their bond.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: In The Trespasser, this is how McCann saw Aislinn. Which is more or less what she wanted him to think she was, even though her motives for getting with him were far more malicious.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
- In the Woods hints at a potential supernatural explanation for the disappearance of Rob's friends alongside all of the mundane ones.
- The Secret Place, again. It's unclear whether the girls' powers are literal within the context of the story or simply a product of their subjective perspective.
- Mercy Kill: The reason behind the Family Extermination in Broken Harbour. Jenny Spain saw It as the only way "out" of the situation they were in and attempted to kill herself as well.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After falsifying evidence to catch the murderer in Broken Harbour, Scorcher decides he can no longer trust himself to be a cop.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Broken Harbour, when Connor—Pat and Jenny's old friend and the latter's Stalker with a Crush—realizes that Jenny is starting to get severely depressed for reasons he doesn't understand, he decides to leave a small souvenir of their past in the house for her to find, hoping that it will cheer her up. Unfortunately, it only convinces her that she's beginning to undergo the same Sanity Slippage as her husband, in all probability helping to push her over the edge.
- Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: In Broken Harbour, this actually causes Jenny Spain to snap. One of her kids, Emma, brings home a drawing of the family which includes the likely imaginary "animal" that her father Patrick has been hunting to the point of Sanity Slippage. Realizing the deep effect that the situation has had on her children is what drives her to the point of Offing the Offspring because she sees it as their only way out.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Richie takes Dina, Scorcher's younger sister who has a severe mental illness, into his apartment when he finds her lost so that nothing bad will happen to her. She then finds a piece of evidence he has been concealing, and, falling into this trope herself, brings it to the station to help her brother, where Quigley, the department asshole, promptly bullies it out of her.
- The One That Got Away: Frank Mackey spent eighteen years believing his first love, Rosie, dumped him and went to England without him, and subconsciously never stopped expecting her to come back. Then her suitcase is found stuffed up the chimney of the building they were supposed to meet in, and a teenage girl's body is unearthed in the basement...
- The Ophelia: Deconstructed with Dina Kennedy. She has all the hallmarks—gorgeous, artsy, prone to wearing white, etc—but when she's one of her downward spirals things get ugly and painful for her and everyone around her.
- Pain Mistaken for Sex: A very dark inversion in Faithful Place: On the night of Rosie's disappearance, Frank recalls hearing what he took to be the sounds of a couple making love. He later comes to believe that what he actually heard was Rosie's struggle with her killer.
- Pater Familicide: Due to the relative commonness of this situation in Real Life, pretty much everyone coming in contact with the Spain family case in Broken Harbour takes it for granted that it was a murder-suicide by Pat, the father. It was actually a Mater Familicide by way of his wife Jenny.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: O'Kelly. several books drop hints that behind the attitude, he's Obfuscating Stupidity. The Trespasser confirms this when he's the only one who can get McCann to give full a full account of the murder of Aislinn. Partially through his own shame, he also takes the wrap to avoid Antoinette and Stephen being branded by the case, and ending his own career.
- Recurring Character: As you might expect, several characters crop up in more than one book. Due to the series structure they all receive different descriptions and analysis by each narrator.
- O'Kelly and Cooper are most prominent, given their professional positions.
- Frank is either referred to or appears in several.
- Crime tech Sophie also appears as a minor character in half of the series.
- Rich Sibling, Poor Sibling: Feigned by Rosalind in In The Woods by way of a Wounded Gazelle Gambit. She claimed to her boyfriend and The Heavy, Damian, that she was being raped by her father with her sister Katy's encouragement and that Katy was the much-adored family favorite as a ballet prodigy while Rosalind was forced to take care of the mentally-disabled youngest sister Jessica. Cassie even says that Rosalind gave Damian a Cinderella story. While it seems that her father preferred Katy over Rosalind, this seems to have had more to do with Rosalind's psychopathy.
- Rotating Protagonist: From The Likeness onward, each book takes a supporting character from the previous one and turns them into the POV Lead.
- Sanity Slippage: In Broken Harbour, a husband and wife living in a half-finished development were slowly losing their minds before someone slaughtered them—the husband from believing there was some kind of wild animal in their house he couldn't catch, the wife from having to keep it together with two small children and no source of income while her husband's obsession consumed him.
- With the possible exception of Stephen Moran, all the first-person characters go through this in their respective installments.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Frank's MO. Deconstructed with a different protagonist, however, when Scorcher falsifies evidence to catch a murderer. Because the rules are his benchmark for right, it destroys his confidence in himself—now that he's crossed that line once, even for a good reason, he can never be sure he won't cross it again.
- Shotgun Wedding: As the investigation in In the Woods reveals, victim Katy Devlin's parents married in their teens after her mother became pregnant with her oldest sister, Rosalind. The Cool Old Lady that reveals this to the investigation opines that these aren't always a bad thing, as the pregnancy and marriage did a lot to make father Jonathan Devlin pull his life together.
- Sibling Murder: Shay kills Kevin in Faithful Place. Played with in In the Woods: Rosalind got a third party to do the dirty work for her.
- The Sociopath: Several characters in In the Woods: Cassie recognizes Cathal Mills and Rosalind Devlin as psychopaths due to her own dealings with a psychopath in college.
- Stalker with a Crush: In Broken Harbour, although Connor was an old and trusted friend of both halves of the Spain couple and meant no harm, he was undoubtedly this to Jenny, doing long stints living in the abandoned house across the street, spying on the family and even sneaking into their house while they were out, just so he could bask in the perceived happiness of the couple. When things started to go downhill, his attempt to comfort Jenny pushed them even further.
- Stalker without a Crush: Conway has one for most of The Trespasser. At first she thinks it's because there might be a threat on her life, but it's actually her father.
- The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction: A key plot point in The Trespasser. Aislinn's friend mentions she might have been seeing a married man on the down-low, which turns out to be Detective McCann from Murder Squad; turns out Aislinn wanted to charm him in order to find out what he knew about her father's disappearance, and she picked him up in exactly this way. McCann (a middle-aged portly man) was aware that he was no stud, but was under the impression she was simply a woman with a thing for policemen, specifically murder detectives, as a source of power and second-hand adrenaline.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Scorcher is of the opinion that you have to pick Lawful, because human brains are intrinsically unreliable, whereas Richie is more flexible. This conflict is central to the climax of Broken Harbor, wherein Richie has chosen good, at least as he sees it, by hiding evidence to allow the killer freedom to commit suicide; and Scorcher goes against the law to try and fix it. This destroys them both.
- True Companions: Introduced, deconstructed, and subverted all over the place, since the novels are about what somebody will do when their psychological pressure points get pushed too hard. Partners are usually this, although it's more common than not for it to be blown all to hell by the end of the book (Moran and Conway are the only partnership to make it through). Also, Holly and her friends at first, but it starts to fall apart until one of them commits a murder to save one of the others, as the murderer sees it, from herself.)
- Uptown Girl: Olivia to Frank. Played for drama, as deep down he thought a boy from Faithful Place could never be good enough for her (especially because he thought Rosie, his first love, had also decided he wasn't good enough) . This was one of the issues that drove them apart, even though Olivia never even thought of that as a mark against him.Frank [bitterly]: Lady Chatterley likes her bit of rough, eh?
- Virgin Power: In The Secret Place, Holly and her friends gain apparently supernatural abilities after they swear off dating and commit to their friendship with each other.
- Virgin Sacrifice: In In the Woods, this is one of the wilder but more fascinating theories as to the motive behind Katy Devlin's murder, since her body was found laid out on an ancient altar stone. Because the media naturally loves the theory while the police are more skeptical, O'Kelly, the superintendent, is frustrated by the decision of the higher-ups to fan the flames by naming the case "Operation Vestal." Subverted by the resolution of the case.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Conway and Moran. They needle each other a lot, and sometimes they do genuinely doubt each other, but in the end their partnership ends up being the only one in the series that lasts.
- World of Snark: Inevitable when you put a bunch of Irish people in a setting that necessitates Gallows Humor.
