In The Woods, by Tana French, is a mystery/suspense novel that takes place in two times at the same location... in Dublin, in the mid 1980s,vusing flashback, and modern day with the lead/protagonist having the flashbacks to an unsolved murder mystery that he is a figure in.
I really loved the first quarter of this book.... I really did. The characters were rich, complex, and entertaining, the dialogue was snappy and far more realistic than usual...
And then.... {audible sigh}... it just.... gets frustrating.
[spoiler alerts!!]
The lead character gets bogged down in his own world, and that drags down the murder investigation that he is leading. He starts as a wildly sympathetic character, and then as the book continues past the half-way point, he just becomes irritating. Needlessly. That was tremendously frustrating, as the book opens so well, drives forward, and then gets lost in a parking lot.
On top of that, the murder that the book opens with... which it leads you along, giving details as the narrator remembers from his mental lockbox.... is never resolved!! (Btw, that is a huge spoiler.) I was ready to throw my iPad across the room when I finished and couldn't find the next 80 pages that had the resolution to the original story of the book.
If you love a frustrating ending, this is a great book. Really, read the first third, and then put it down. The book really fires off all the fireworks by then, and the rest will just drag you down.
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Next up, "When Breath Becomes Air" - by Paul Kalanithi
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