Book Curious ®

Tana French       Pages: 449        Published: 2016

The book: Detective Antoinette Conway and her partner Stephen Moran are assigned a new murder case. Initially, it looks like a typical lovers’ quarrel gone wrong.  Other detectives on her squad are pushing her to close the case and not look beyond the obvious. However, something is bothering Antoinette.  She is convinced that things are not as straightforward as they appear. Will Detective Antoinette and her partner, Detective Moran, work out what is really going on and solve the crime?

You might like it because: This is an engrossing crime thriller that pulls you in and keeps you twisting back and forth till the very end.

What did other people say?
“When you read Ms. French — and she has become required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting — make only one assumption: All of your initial assumptions are wrong.” – Janet Maslin The New York Times

“A fierce examination of the chasm between how women choose to present themselves before the world and the more complicated truth underneath – and not to mention a total page-turner.” – Harper’s Bazaar

How quickly will you get into the book? The first two pages pulled me in and by page twelve I was hooked and had to keep reading till the end.

You might not like it because: A lot of this story takes place in police interview rooms, and while most of these scenes are gripping and move the plot forward, there are a few times when it gets a bit dull and repetitive.
French paints a warts-and-all picture of the protagonist, Antoinette Conway. This might make it hard for some readers to feel empathy for her and thus detract from their enjoyment of the book.

What might you read next?
Read one of Tana French’s favorite books. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, French said that she was an enormous fan of Donna Tartt. She described Tartt’s The Secret History as “one of the great mystery books of all time, and one of the great literary novels, as far as I’m concerned.”

She is also, according to the Guardian a fan of Patricia Highsmith. You could read her psychological thriller, The Two Faces of January.

Alternatively, read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It’s a book that one of the fictional characters in The Trespasser loved.

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