Tana French & Sophie Hannah are linked in my mind — I started reading their series (both starring murder detectives and lots of twisty twists) around the same time, and I’m pretty sure I found one because the other recommended her. But while Sophie Hannah’s books have been a little…lacking lately, I feel like French’s just keep getting better and better.
“I live inside my own skin. Anything that happens outside it doesn’t change who I am. This isn’t something I’m proud of; as far as I’m concerned, it’s a bare minimum baseline requirement for calling yourself an adult human being, somewhere around the level of knowing how to do your own washing or change a toilet roll. All those idiots on the websites, begging for other people to pull their sagging puppet-strings, turn them real: they make me want to spit.”
French links her novels together with same general setting (the Dublin Murder Squad), but tends to focus each new book on a new character, who may have been featured in a previous one, albeit in a smaller role. I love how this keeps things fresh, while providing the reader with a familiar background. The Trespasser starts the tough as shit Antoinette Conway (who took a supporting role in The Secret Place), trying to make a name on the Murder Squad, despite facing obstacle after obstacle from her coworkers. The case is interesting — what appears to be a lovers’ quarrel turns into so much more — but the true story here is inside Antoinette. Her mind works constantly, looking for threats to herself and her career, and by the end she gets you so wrapped up that you have no idea who to trust. The whole book is a mindfuck, and I loved every minute of it.
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