Saturday's Pick!

Irish writer Tana French has written an intriguing first novel In the Woods that pulls you into the story in the short prologue and doesn't let go until the end. It is a police procedural and psychological suspense story that centres around the unsolved disappearance of two children twenty years ago and the current brutal murder of a young girl in the same woods. Unknown to anyone except his partner is the fact that the detective investigating this latest crime was involved in the earlier disappearance. When Rob Ryan was twelve, he and his two best friends were playing. Only he was found, "his fingernails digging into the trunk so deeply that they had broken off in the bark", traumatized and remembering nothing.
All the characters are well developed, the plot complex with some surprises and the atmosphere is compelling, especially in the scenes that Ryan has memory flashes. The narrative description might annoy readers who want to solve this quickly but I thought it added to the depth and quality of this beautifully written story.