Hi everyone. I'm Rincey and this is
Rincey Reads. Today I'm going to be doing
a book review on The Secret Place by
Tana French. This is the fifth book in
the Dublin Murder Squad series. I have
read all the books in the series and I
believe I have a review up for all the
books. I know at least have it for In the
Woods and The Likeness.
So I will leave the links to the reviews
that I have up down in the
description below. The great thing about
this series is that you don't
necessarily have to read them in order.
But i think it actually is better if you
do. Because while you follow a different
detective in each of these novels, you
meet the detective that you're going to
following in the previous novel. So
the detective that you are following in
this one is Detective Stephen Moran who
we found out about in Faithful Place.
Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting
for his chance to be able to join the
Dublin murder squad. And then one day 16
year old Holly Mackey comes to him.
Holly Mackey is the daughter of Frank
Mackey who is the main detective that we
followed in the last book. Now Holly is 16
years old. She is attending a boarding
school and the previous year there was a
death that happened at the boarding
school. And it was sort of this unsolved
murder. Then Holly comes to the police
station and contacts Detective Stephan Moran
saying that she has a clue that she
recently found or this message that she
recently found that she believes is
connected to the original murder. And so
Stephen Moran along with Detective
Antoinette Conway head off to the
boarding school.
Detective Conway was the lead detective in
the previous case and got a whole bunch
of flack because it was one of her first
major cases and it went completely cold.
And so they head off to the boarding
school to try to figure out whether or
not this clue is legit, where it came from
and to try to see if they can finally
solve this murder.
This book is really different from all
of the other Tana French books that
are out so far. And that was something
that was actually given a heads up about
prior to picking this one up or like
right as i was picking this one up.
Usually with Tana French's mystery
books it takes a little bit of time to
be able to figure out obviously who the
killer is in
each of those situations. This one is
different in that it takes place over
the course of about like 12 to 24 hours
total.
And so you are following this timeline
as the detectives are at the boarding
school trying to figure out what
happened. But every other chapter also
flashes back in time and so you see some
scene in the boarding school that
provides you as the reader a little bit more
information about what actually happened.
So Tana French is able to create
this sort of suspense because the reader
very often knows a little bit more than
the detectives do. And so in this
situation you are actually sort of
waiting to see how and if the detectives
are going to be able to figure this out
or to be able to like find out this information.
Another thing about Tana French's books
which I think makes them stand out from
all other mystery books is that she's
someone who focuses a lot on character
development. And usually it's the main
detective that you are digging really
deep into. You usually learn a lot about
the detectives' past and their
relationships with the other detectives
that they work with. But in this one
Detective Stephen Moran actually is more
like a side character. The characters that
you're learning about in this book are
actually like the girls who are
attending the boarding school, which I thought was a really interesting choice and
i think is part of the reason why I
enjoyed this book so much. I love a good
boarding school book and I love a book
that does a deep dive into teenage girls
really well. And so I think that's really
what drew me into this book more than
the murder itself.
I think The Secret Place is one of the
more divisive books that Tana French has
ever put out. I saw so many people who
were on like all sides of the spectrum
when it came to rating and reviewing
this book. Some people really did not like
this book and I can completely
understand why. Because you know Stephen Moran
isn't really anything to write home
about.
And the mystery itself while dominant I
felt like for me at least the part that
most compelling
were reading more and more about these
teenage girls and about their
friendships and about their relationship
with each other and with the boys at the
other boarding school and just the rivalries
and the different cliques and all of
that sort of stuff. Those storylines
really ring my bells and so
that's why I think I love this book so
so much. This book, it does require quite
a significant amount of suspension of
disbelief.
If you read The Likeness you know that
there is a pretty decent amount of
suspension of disbelief that you need to
have a while reading that book.
This one requires even more than that, which again
is another reason why a lot of people
probably didn't like this book. But I was
actually completely okay with it. I don't
want to go too much into detail about
like how and why you need to suspend
disbelief because I feel like that's
sort of part of the mystery. But if you
are someone who likes their murders to
be extremely straightforward -- murders
as if you guys are all out there
murdering people.
If you're someone who likes their
mystery novels to be really
straightforward that you might not like
this both quite as much as all the
others. However to me I felt like in
Broken Harbor and in Faithful Place the
mystery themselves were such a large
part of the story.
I found myself feeling a little bit
burnt out and a little bit bored by
those two books. And I feel like with The
Secret Place because Tana French
takes such a different angle and such a
different twist on it
I think again I enjoyed it so much more
than I thought i was going to. I mean
obviously like Tana French's books are
like far and above
like all other mystery books in my mind.
But I felt like Faithful Place and Broken
Harbor while they were very good
they just felt kind of like average or a
little bit above average. And I felt like
the extra twist in this book made me
love it a little bit more. But again your
mileage may vary just depending on what
you want out of the Tana French books.
If you're someone who likes like campus
novels or you like boarding school books
then I think that this one would
actually be a really good one to pick up
because it has all of those elements but
it just has a slight mystery to it as
well. Even if you haven't read any of
Tana French's other books, I still
think that this one is worth picking up.
So in the end I gave this book a 4 out of 5
stars. Again I really enjoyed this book.
I thought the girls in here we're just
so fantastic. I would read an entire
story just about their friendship. I mean
that's basically what this was but I'm
really interested to see like what
they're like when they're grown up.
If Tana French wants to write that
book as well that would be great. That
could be a future Dublin murder squad
book. Maybe like flash forward way into
the future.
Holly Mackey is obviously on her way to
becoming a detective or a police officer.
And so it would be great to see her
growing up and maybe reconnecting with
these characters.
Maybe I should like email Tana French
or something cause the more I'm talking about
it the more I'm liking it.
If for some reason you're watching this
and you haven't read any Tana French
books, pick them up. Just pick them up already.
They're so so good. I really really enjoy
them. I think that even if you're someone
who doesn't really read a lot of mystery
novels her books would definitely appeal
to you because again it's more about the
character development with Tana
French's books than it is about the mystery.
So yeah those are my quick thoughts on
The Secret Place by Tana French. If you've read
this book feel free to leave a comment
down below letting me know whether or not you
liked it or disliked it. Even if
disliked it, feel free to tell me
why because I always like seeing sort of
like opposing opinions to me when it
comes to reading books especially book
that I really enjoyed. I kind of like to
see what are the flaws that really stood
out to them. Or if you have any questions
about this book or any of the other
books in the series you can always leave
that down in the comment section as well
so yeah that's all I have for now thanks for watching.
