Before I start, I have to admit, I technically read this series out of order. I read the sixth of the series without reading any of the before. As far as I can tell, it is the type of series that you don't need to read in order, but if the characters and location are continuous, then I might be missing brief character history.I just finished "The Trespasser" by Tana French, and my overall opinion is that it is excellent. The novel is dense, real, clever, and the near-perfect slow burn crime novel.
We follow our main character: Detective Antoinette Conway as she struggles through the tangled web of being a new (and sexistly picked on) member of the Murder Squad. It was always her dream to be on it, but since she was she got the bottom-of-the-barrel, low feeder cases that failed to stimulate her. In this novel, she's reaching her breaking point with all of the rude comments, the jokes, and the lack of respect.
All of that changes when her and her partner Stephen Moran get assigned the case of Aislinn Murray—what appears to be just another run of the mill domestic violence case with just a little bit more tied up in it.
This story begins with the preliminaries of any case, introducing us to witty dialogue and description with the precision of a knife that laid the groundworks for our characters and for the Murder Squad which we would spend the rest of the novel detangling, and this is the very first time that I was struck by the brilliance of Tana French.
Tana French is detail royalty. Each detail, down to the kind of breakfasts they ate, their specific word choices, their thoughts, their homes, and even their phones are perfect for the characters. There isn't a lot of this novel where you can't perfectly envision the slightly neurotic, tenacious, and worn down Detective Conway, or the nice guy Detective Moran. "The Trespasser" was one of the few novels I've read as of late where I could practically hear every line of dialogue.
That is part of what contributes to the genius of this book. Any book is character-based, but one about murder and its suspects, as well as the detectives behind it, is particularly rooted in characters who move the story along, and the perfection Tana French created here was mind-blowing.
As the plot progresses, a bit slowly at first as our detectives struggle with their allegiances and various possible leads, there are theories that tangle members of the Murder Squad into the crime. Conway and Moran suspected Breslin to be involved with a gang and that gang to be responsible for Aislinn's death, which was another brilliant touch by French upon the ending of the book.
In terms of plot, I think this book's plot could have been more complicated, for there was a lot of it that I predicted, but it still doesn't stop the thrilling feeling I got reading it while French took her main detectives on wild limbs and chasing theories that were so close to the truth you began to believe it too.
And, of course, it being a crime novel, there were multiple long scenes of interrogations that I simply couldn't get enough of. As she's so good at dialogue, these scenes where the cops settle into their roles and learn things about both the suspects, but one another as well, were some of the finest of the book, and ultimately were vessels to reveal main plot points—something a bit unconventional seeing as the plot points didn't have anything to do with the suspects and everything to do with the detectives.
With the history of crime writing general, I also have to say that reading a female main character written realistically was just ridiculously refreshing. Men dominated this genre for years and always seemed unable to write deep, multi-dimensional female characters. Tana French is the epitome of crime writing, and she brings with it many things that I was tired of not seeing before. For that, I'm incredibly grateful.
To put it firmly: This will not be the last book of Tana French's that I'm reading. Crime writing is a difficult thing to tackle, but Tana French is an expert.
Characters: 100%
Plot: 85%
Depth: 90%
Style: 95%
Intrigue: 90%
Overall Rating: A
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