In the Woods by Tana French

Doubling down on my plans to stick to award winners:  here is In the Woods, Tana French's 2007 mystery debut that won the Edgar.  This was a paperback that my daughter-in-law left here in July and I let it sit on my bedside table, thinking it was going to be some rehash of the Broadway play Into the Woods.  So when the weather was bad and I was too fagged out to even make it to the library on a Saturday, I picked it up.

And it was difficult to put it down, even given other pressing deadlines like tax filings.  429 pages long ... how many other mystery writers have that much of plot twists to master.  One villain did emerge clearly after page 300 or so, but my then I was so caught up in the detective team, their personal prior lives, and how that past biased their investigations.

And did I mention it is set outside Dublin?  Just enough turns of phrase and idioms to make you know it is Irish but enough contemporary world issues that it still came off as current and timeless.  (See I am still thinking like Heaney, having finished that short shrift blog in the last half hour.)

So I am analyzing the plot for its poetry in taking the intensely personal and making it resonate universally.  Here is the murder of a child being investigated by a man who assumed another name and identity after his two best friends disappeared in the same "wood."  As I am beset by having my staff and collaborators sign conflict of interest forms before the analyze information or negotiate with organizations, I question whether the real intent is to swear one won't profit from their assignments when it is impossible not to be influenced by what you know, the background and experience  you bring to your desk, the very talents and past I pay highly for.

While investigating political corruption and  suspected child abuse, French depicts another poignant subplot, paralleling the relationship between Rob (the surviving child of the 1984 crime), his partner Cassie and the newbie in the detective room, Sam, and that blissful childhood of Rob, with Jaime and Peter.  Those three children at 12 were living an idyll, children on the cusp of boarding school; the three policemen have a similar care free equality in looking into the crime.  Yet Rob cannot see the investigation leading to a parallel breakup of camaraderie.  Rob's past is recreated in his withdrawal and trauma suppressed in the new investigation.  Cassie can't successfully express her own earlier sufferings and studies to inform and convince the rest of the team.

The story makes cops human, well intended, yet still capable of well intentioned oversights.  This is a mystery I will leave with my retired friend and book club founder as soon as possible, mystery junkie like myself.  I will immediately go on the Net to see if the library has French's other books.