Current Selection: In the Woods by Tana French

First let me apologize for being so tardy getting out the information about our last meeting. We had a great meeting with seven members attending; not everyone was there at the same time but over the course of the hour seven mavens attended. The meeting took place as scheduled Wednesday, February 2^nd. We had a very spirited discussion about Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. It seems you either loved the book or found it boring. Since there was very little middle ground the discussion was quite lively. We all agreed that we learned some new information about this famous woman.

Due to my tardiness and in an effort to give people enough time to read (about 8 weeks) I have taken the liberty of choosing the next book we will read. It is a novel, in the murder mystery genre; In the Woods by Tana French. A brief review is below. I hope you will join us at the next meeting Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 11:30 AM in the LRC Mezzanine. Please bring your lunch; dessert and beverages will be provided.  

FYI the library has ordered 3 copies and they should be available shortly.

From Publishers Weekly

Irish author French expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller in her debut. When Katy Devlin, a 12-year-old girl from Knocknaree, a Dublin suburb, is found murdered at a local archeological dig, Det. Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, must probe deep into the victim's troubled family history. There are chilling similarities between the Devlin murder and the disappearance 20 years before of two children from the same neighborhood who were Ryan's best friends. Only Maddox knows Ryan was involved in the 1984 case. The plot climaxes with a taut interrogation by Maddox of a potential suspect, and the reader is floored by the eventual identity and motives of the killer. A distracting political subplot involves a pending motorway in Knocknaree, but Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, whose partnership and friendship elevate the narrative beyond a gory tale of murdered children and repressed childhood trauma. (May)