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Sparkle (1)
I started reading Tana French's Faithful Place on a plane. My body might have been flying high up above the Canadian shield, but my head was in Dublin. I got a bit cranky when the plane touched down, forcing me back into reality, and I still had about one-third of it left to read. After getting to the hotel, I curled up in bed and stayed up until after midnight to finish it. I had forgotten how delicious a mystery can be.
I don't read a lot of mysteries. I've mentioned it in the past, but I'm a bad mystery reader. I tend to rush though them, skimming where necessary, to get to the point where I know who did it. I don't care about red herrings and misdirection. I don't care how well developed the story is or if the dialogue is snappy. I want to know the answer to the mystery and I want to know now.
But sometimes a mystery comes along that is just so delicious that I get sucked in. I read ... well, perhaps not patiently, but attentively. I still sometimes have to hold myself back from skimming ahead when the action gets good. Faithful Place was on of those books that forced me to slow down and enjoy every morsel.
Francis Mackey and Rosie Daly were as in love as any two teenagers you've seen. Only no one ever saw it with these two. Neither of their families like the other and Rosie was told to stay away from that Mackey boy. They formed a plan to run away together, but Rosie didn't show. All Frank found was a goodbye letter he assumed was for him so he went on his own way. Instead of going to England and working with rock bands, he forged his way onto Dublin's Undercover squad -- thus making himself an enemy of his former neighborhood.
Not that he really cared. He hadn't spend as much as a minute in his teenage stomping grounds since that night Rosie hadn't shown up. He had his own life now, which included a nine-year-old daughter. He had no interest in revisiting his past. At least until the day he finds out that Rosie Daly's suitcase was discovered at their meeting place. Maybe Rosie hadn't jilted him after all ...
What follows is a twisty-turny path through memories, dysfunctional family dynamics and community that operates by its own rules. Faithful Place is a murder mystery. It's novel about first love. It's a family narrative. And if you look at from a certain light -- a recognition that past is what it is and that you have to accept what it wasn't -- a coming-of-age story.
Faithful Place a book that you won't want to put down. If you are like me and haven't read Tana French's other novels In the Woods and The Likeness, you'll be making a beeline to the bookstore to grab them.
BlogHer Book Club Host Karen Ballum also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
