“Faithful Place” by Tana French

So this is the third post I’ve written about a book by Tara French. In case you didn’t notice, I’m starting to be a bit of a fan.

Faithful Place centers around Frank Mackey, who was Cassie’s boss in the previous book. Cassie never appears in the novel, which makes me a little sad because I quite liked her, but that’s unrelated. Overall there’s less of a connection to the previous books than before, which makes sense since the two previous narrators were closely connected and Frank wasn’t really.

So of course, this book centers around Frank’s past and his family. One recurring theme with French’s narrators is that they are all haunted by their past in some way. For Frank, it’s his first love, Rosie, and her disappearance. The family sap can get overpowering at times since almost every character is related to Frank in some way, but he also has a pretty dysfunctional family so it’s not that bad. Also the whole “first love” thing I can’t really relate to very well, so there’s that.

Having said that, French does a really good job here of seamlessly connecting the case work and the present with Frank’s memories of Rosie in the past. They complement each other and flow really nicely. She hits that spot where you always know where you are in time, but it doesn’t feel like a transition took place. It’s nice. These memories also provide a backstory for Frank, which elaborates on what we learn about him in The Likeness, which was next to nothing.

One thing I noticed during this book (which isn’t really related but whatever) is how authors love writing about divorced detectives. Case Histories had one, and that’s pretty much Frank’s situation here. The two narrators are essentially the same person. It’s probably people’s tendency to assume that intelligent detectives working on murder cases have been through some rough times, which tends to be a divorce. Divorces also leave kids, which are always something for characters to try and protect and care about. So it gives a good past and future, handy little technique.

Back to the book, Frank is a pretty cool just-doesn’t-give-a-shit type of guy, so I enjoyed his perspective on the case. Especially since he has such a personal investment in it.

This book, like the rest of French’s, stands pretty well on it’s own since it has so little connection to the previous books in the series. So if this is your first French book or if you’ve already read the others, you will almost definitely enjoy hearing Frank’s sass!