A Look at Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad Series

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Faithful Place

Synopsis: Frank Mackey, Cassie’s boss from The Likeness is the protagonist of Faithful Place. When Frank was 19 he planned on eloping with his sweetheart Rosie Daley, but on the day they were supposed to run away together, she never showed up. Frank left anyway and became a big time detective, never looking back on his small, impoverished hometown. One day a suitcase is found in a house, the same house where Frank and Rosie were to meet on that fateful day.  The case brings Frank back home to find out what really happened to Rosie and to face all of those he left behind.

Why to read it: Faithful Place seamlessly weaves the past and present to tell a rich story of a family and their secrets.  Through flashbacks it travels between the 1980’s and present day. French paints a clear picture of the Mackeys, their struggles, their fights, their poverty, and their anger at Frank for getting out. By the end you feel as if you know every single one of the characters and their motivations, no small feat for a novel as full as this one.

Faithful Place is French’s best work precisely because of these characters, especially Frank. She inhabits him in a way that almost makes you forget he isn’t real. Frank’s voice is clear, written in so you can hear his Irish accent, his wry cynicism, his broken heart. He is a man with love for one thing in this world, his nine year old daughter Holly, and regret over almost everything else. You come to care about him a desperate, hopeless way because of the way she writes him and the way you know it is all going to end.

Even if your family isn’t as broken or crazy as Frank’s there is something universal in his experience. Family is what makes us who we are, the people who define us whether we want them to or not. And sometimes they can be dangerous.