It would be rare that I read a book twice in the same year but when I hear book 5 includes Stephan Moran and Holly Mackey from Faithful Place I thought why not reread? I can then also take a fresh look out at the Frank Mackey versus Scorcher Kennedy dynamic from Franks point of view again. I mean in one book Scorcher is a real middle-class egotistic pile of shite and in the other Frank is a cheating working-class scumbag who wrecked Kennedy’s career. Which is true?

And that is what is so intriguing about these books finding out that when the perspective switches to a minor character, in a previous book, that what was true is still true but has been misinterpreted and is not the whole story. So I guess in Police speak it is the truth just not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So as to the review? I seem to have skipped it last May but my notes say.

"Rather enjoying what is quintessentially a family drama set in the Dublin Liberties with an odd gruesome murder.”

And you know that sums it up in just one sentence.


Fundamentally Tana French writes people, in this case, the working-class family and community of the contemporary and 1980’s Liberties Dublin. The crimes arise out of the normal ugliness of the human condition and the Gardaí/police are just as flawed as the people they are investigating.