“Her hair was in a wavy chin length tumble instead of two thick childhood plaits or the graceless teenage flop, and her old bony plainness had settled into something arresting in its serene aura of permanence, its implication that she would look much the same in twenty years, or fifty; but having babies had softened her long legged angularity only a little, she was wearing faded jeans and almost no makeup, and she still sat the way she had as a kid, cross legged and unselfconscious.”

The press release I got with this book quotes Stephen King as stating “Terrific - terrifying, amazing and the prose is incandescent”

To take his quote part I will begin by agreeing with the prose being radiant (there is a death scene with seeds falling on a body that cries to be filmed by a director with vision). If you like the quote above, you should know that it is the opening description, taken from page 112, of one of the more central characters; if you like it you will get on with Tana’s style very well. If you are okay with the opening description of a central character not happening for over 100 pages - you are going to love her writing:)

Tana French writes verbose slow burners of books, populated by middle-class Dubs and Cultchie (Irish country) detectives that are too smart for their own or anyone else’s good. The plot is secondary to characters, who are nearly always hopelessly flawed and living the life of young urban professionals in Dublin that involves too much drink and some social drug taking.

Going back to Mr. King’s quote is it terrifying? Not in the sense of one of his novels no. But in a very real sense yes. We have a central character with a really rather realistically described brain injury, that causes memory loss and a change in personality. The central protagonist is suddenly flung into a world where one of his school friends may have been murdered by someone close to him, a family member or even by his memory lapsed self. But nothing not even murder is quite as upsetting to him as his own loss of identity.

“The thing is, I suppose,” he said, “that one gets into the habit of being oneself. It takes some great upheaval to crack that shell and force us to discover what else might be underneath” 

Anybody expecting a plot-driven crime novel is going to be sorely disappointed with this one (and most of Tana’s work). It’s an introspection of what makes our characters, the effects on our lives of brain injuries, brain tumors and making the decision to kill someone. You know everyday life like! :)

Still a piece of work that I strongly recommend to fans of slow-burning literary fiction who enjoy a twist of murder and mayhem to the side.