Faithful Place
On sale
3rd February 2011
Price: £8.99
‘Breathtaking — an elaborately twisted ballad of class resentments, family burdens, regret and passion’ The Washington Post
‘An author of exceptional talent and insight’ Sunday Independent
‘In all your life, only a few moments matter. I was lucky. I got to see one of mine face to face, and recognise it for what it was.’
The course of Frank Mackey’s life is set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The time his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as planned.
Frank never heard from, or of, her again.
Twenty years on, Frank is still in Dublin, working as an undercover cop. He’s cut all ties with his dysfunctional family. Until his sister calls to say that Rosie’s suitcase has been found …
‘An author of exceptional talent and insight’ Sunday Independent
‘In all your life, only a few moments matter. I was lucky. I got to see one of mine face to face, and recognise it for what it was.’
The course of Frank Mackey’s life is set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The time his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as planned.
Frank never heard from, or of, her again.
Twenty years on, Frank is still in Dublin, working as an undercover cop. He’s cut all ties with his dysfunctional family. Until his sister calls to say that Rosie’s suitcase has been found …
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Reviews
Every holiday needs a good crime novel and French's skilful thrillers are tailor-made to terrify
Even more gripping than her last two. A truly amazing novel - so brilliant on dysfunctional family dynamics, with characters so real that you can hardly believe someone's made them up.
A gripping, literate thriller laced with black humour
Gripping. Tana French's third novel hooks the reader from the outset; the characters are masterfully drawn, and the author's ear for Dublin dialogue is pitch-perfect.
The first thing that Ms. French does so well in "Faithful Place" is to inhabit fully a scrappy, shrewd, privately heartbroken middle-aged man. The second is to capture the Mackey family's long-brewing resentments in a way that's utterly realistic on many levels. Sibling rivalries, class conflicts, old grudges, adolescent flirtations and memories of childhood violence are all deftly embedded in this novel, as is the richly idiomatic Dublinese.
If you're only going to buy one thriller this year, let it be Tana French's Faithful Place. Searing, utterly Dub, and very funny . . . Tana French, Dublin author of international hits . . . is a wonder. Just don't plan anything if you pick this up; you won't be able to put it down.
Tana French revisits, evocatively and lyrically, themes she's used before: love, loss, memory, murder, and life in modern Ireland. French's writing remains brilliant, and her dialogue is sharp, often lacerating, and sometimes mordantly funny. Faithful Place is her best book yet.
Charming - will leave readers begging for a sequel
Faithful Place is Tana French's best book yet (readers familiar with "In the Woods" and "The Likeness" will recognize this as an incredible feat), a compelling and cutting mystery with the hardscrabble, savage Mackey clan at its heart.