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The Secret Place
On sale
28th August 2014
Price: £8.99
‘A gripping read for those still pining for GONE GIRL’ Elle’s top five beach reads
The photo shows a boy who was murdered a year ago.
The caption says, ‘I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM’.
Detective Stephen Moran hasn’t seen Holly Mackey since she was a nine-year-old witness to the events of Faithful Place. Now she’s sixteen and she’s shown up outside his squad room, with a photograph and a story.
Even in her exclusive boarding school, in the graceful golden world that Stephen has always longed for, bad things happen and people have secrets. The previous year, Christopher Harper, from the neighbouring boys’ school, was found murdered on the grounds. And today, in the Secret Place – the school noticeboard where girls can pin up their secrets anonymously – Holly found the card.
Solving this case could take Stephen onto the Murder squad. But to get it solved, he will have to work with Detective Antoinette Conway – tough, prickly, an outsider, everything Stephen doesn’t want in a partner. And he will have to find a way into the strange, charged, mysterious world that Holly and her three closest friends inhabit and disentangle the truth from their knot of secrets, even as he starts to suspect that the truth might be something he doesn’t want to hear.
From the multi-award-winning author of Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller In the Woods, The Secret Place is a searing novel of psychological suspense.
The photo shows a boy who was murdered a year ago.
The caption says, ‘I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM’.
Detective Stephen Moran hasn’t seen Holly Mackey since she was a nine-year-old witness to the events of Faithful Place. Now she’s sixteen and she’s shown up outside his squad room, with a photograph and a story.
Even in her exclusive boarding school, in the graceful golden world that Stephen has always longed for, bad things happen and people have secrets. The previous year, Christopher Harper, from the neighbouring boys’ school, was found murdered on the grounds. And today, in the Secret Place – the school noticeboard where girls can pin up their secrets anonymously – Holly found the card.
Solving this case could take Stephen onto the Murder squad. But to get it solved, he will have to work with Detective Antoinette Conway – tough, prickly, an outsider, everything Stephen doesn’t want in a partner. And he will have to find a way into the strange, charged, mysterious world that Holly and her three closest friends inhabit and disentangle the truth from their knot of secrets, even as he starts to suspect that the truth might be something he doesn’t want to hear.
From the multi-award-winning author of Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller In the Woods, The Secret Place is a searing novel of psychological suspense.
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Reviews
A gripping read for those still pining for Gone Girl
A wonderfully tender and savage thriller about loyalty, teenage friendship and first loves. Gripping and ingenious
An absolutely mesmerizing read
Clearly the work of a criminal mastermind
Expect fine characterisation, good writing and some clever red herrings.
French is one of the most consistently exciting crime novelists working today. The Secret Place may be her most ambitious book yet . . . completely riveting. French offers a chilling portrait of the ways in which teenage friendships can overrule any conventional morality. - Thriller of the Week
French's pitch-perfect prose nails teenage lives with uncanny precision and the result is that rare beast, a literary page turner.
French's talent for creating great characters and intimate relationships shines in this gripping novel - creating an intense atmosphere for the two detectives to find the killer.
I haven't been so absorbed in a boarding school story since Malory Towers, though St Kilda's in Dublin is altogether a darker place, and even had Enid Blyton been on speed, she could never have achieved Tana French's whip-smart skills when it comes to teenage girl dialogue (Enid would have been horrified at their language) and plot development . . . French ratchets up the tension in familiar fashion and is a marvellous chronicler of the intense, anxious and passionate lives of teenagers.
I know who killed him - but I'm envious of anyone who does not, because it means they have yet to read the new novel by the bestselling, multiple award-winning Irish author, Tana French, already acclaimed as "one of the finest crime writers in the world".
It's terrific - terrifying, amazing, and the prose is incandescent
I've been enthusiastically telling everyone who will listen to read Tana French
Prepare to be hooked by one of the stand-out books of the year.
She's a seriously talented writer and I love her Dublin Murder Squad series. I've been eagerly awaiting this one for ages.
Tana French is now the undisputed queen of Irish crime fiction . . . her books transcend genre. Her prose is "literary fiction", her plots are intricate, her characters and dialogue compellingly real.
The new Tartt - the thriller that's every bit as good as The Secret History . . . Classic in the making . . . French's scintillating dialogue . . . captures how teenagers talk now as expertly as any young-adult novel, and she sustains suspense flawlessly. The Secret Place is at least as good as Donna Tartt's The Secret History and every bit as well written. A film looks inevitable.
The thing Tana French does better than almost any living crime writer is create suspense. She makes you feel as if you're the detective, and your whole future career, not to mention your mental equilibrium, depends upon working out the solution to the puzzle. The Secret Place is another nail-biting ordeal of mysteriousness that will have readers frantically turning pages in their eagerness to discover the truth
This riveting crime novel may be set in a girls' school but it is definitely not kids' stuff. French's prose glitters, creating a gripping mystery set in a world of shadows and tension
Unmissable Mystery . . . Exquisitely crafted and utterly absorbing. Read it!
Winning combination of intricate plotting and psychological depth
A gripping read for those still pining for Gone Girl
A wonderfully tender and savage thriller about loyalty, teenage friendship and first loves. Gripping and ingenious
An absolutely mesmerizing read
Clearly the work of a criminal mastermind
Expect fine characterisation, good writing and some clever red herrings.
French is one of the most consistently exciting crime novelists working today. The Secret Place may be her most ambitious book yet . . . completely riveting. French offers a chilling portrait of the ways in which teenage friendships can overrule any conventional morality. - Thriller of the Week
French's pitch-perfect prose nails teenage lives with uncanny precision and the result is that rare beast, a literary page turner.
French's talent for creating great characters and intimate relationships shines in this gripping novel - creating an intense atmosphere for the two detectives to find the killer.
I haven't been so absorbed in a boarding school story since Malory Towers, though St Kilda's in Dublin is altogether a darker place, and even had Enid Blyton been on speed, she could never have achieved Tana French's whip-smart skills when it comes to teenage girl dialogue (Enid would have been horrified at their language) and plot development . . . French ratchets up the tension in familiar fashion and is a marvellous chronicler of the intense, anxious and passionate lives of teenagers.
I know who killed him - but I'm envious of anyone who does not, because it means they have yet to read the new novel by the bestselling, multiple award-winning Irish author, Tana French, already acclaimed as "one of the finest crime writers in the world".
It's terrific - terrifying, amazing, and the prose is incandescent
I've been enthusiastically telling everyone who will listen to read Tana French
Prepare to be hooked by one of the stand-out books of the year.
She's a seriously talented writer and I love her Dublin Murder Squad series. I've been eagerly awaiting this one for ages.
Tana French is now the undisputed queen of Irish crime fiction . . . her books transcend genre. Her prose is "literary fiction", her plots are intricate, her characters and dialogue compellingly real.
The new Tartt - the thriller that's every bit as good as The Secret History . . . Classic in the making . . . French's scintillating dialogue . . . captures how teenagers talk now as expertly as any young-adult novel, and she sustains suspense flawlessly. The Secret Place is at least as good as Donna Tartt's The Secret History and every bit as well written. A film looks inevitable.
The thing Tana French does better than almost any living crime writer is create suspense. She makes you feel as if you're the detective, and your whole future career, not to mention your mental equilibrium, depends upon working out the solution to the puzzle. The Secret Place is another nail-biting ordeal of mysteriousness that will have readers frantically turning pages in their eagerness to discover the truth
This riveting crime novel may be set in a girls' school but it is definitely not kids' stuff. French's prose glitters, creating a gripping mystery set in a world of shadows and tension
Unmissable Mystery . . . Exquisitely crafted and utterly absorbing. Read it!
Winning combination of intricate plotting and psychological depth
