Faithful Place

Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad #3)

Tana French, 2010

Frank Mackey, undercover detective introduced in The Likeness, is front and center in this installment of the Dublin Murder Squad series. When Mackey was a teenager, he and his girlfriend had planned to leave their homes at Faithful Place and run off to England together. The night they had planned to leave, she never showed up, so Frank ended up leaving on his own, thinking that she had changed her mind. Now, many years later, the girl's suitcase is turned up in the fireplace of an abandoned house, and after searching the premises, her body is discovered buried in the basement. While the Murder Squad investigates the case, Frank is drawn back into his dysfunctional family's drama and is forced to revisit his past, as well as figure out the answer to the question of what actually happened that night in Faithful Place.

While this story was enjoyable and left me guessing, it was a bit of a letdown after Into the Woods and The Likeness, which were just better books. To be fair, though, I think my problem had less to do with the story and more to do with having Mackey as the central character, since I so violently disliked him in The Likeness. But it did end up being a pretty good story in the end and Mackey's family drama had its really good parts, even if it started out a little slow. A good mystery story, definitely worth the read, but I'm hoping for something a little better out of Broken Harbor.