I picked this book up from the best seller table at Borders, because I wanted to take a chance and read something I’d never heard of. The plot sounded interesting. But I’ll be honest. I thought it was going to be your run-of-the-mill murder mystery in which the male and female partner detectives get a once-in-a-lifetime case, run through a bunch of bogus leads, fall in love along the way, find that the unlikely killer was right in front of their face the whole time, and become better people for the whole experience. But In The Woods surprised me.  It wasn’t an altogether pleasant surprise, mind you, but a surprise nonetheless.

Detective Rob Ryan has a hidden past, which all comes rushing back to him when he and his partner, Cassie Maddox, are handed the case of a murdered child in the woods near the Knocknaree estate.  It was in these same woods that Ryan and his two childhood friends went missing.  Ryan was found, clinging to a tree and wearing blood-soaked sneakers, catatonic and unable to remember anything.  The two other children were never found, and the unresolved case files sit collecting dust in the basement of the same building where Ryan now works.  While searching for Katy Devlin’s killer, Ryan struggles to remember what happened to him and his friends that summer, and deals with the fact that finding out may derail his life and his career.

French’s style of writing was easy to get lost in.  Her expertise in conveying emotion and atmosphere made In The Woods a fairly enjoyable read.  An adult who has blotted a traumatic experience from his mind, only to recall it at the most opportune time, is great story fodder.  But it’s not entirely realistic.  French was clearly aware of this, and doesn’t easily give up the answers her readers are looking for.  I applaud her for that.

There were instances during my reading of this book where I thought I knew exactly where it was going.  I would peg a character and say, “Oh, that’s the killer!  How predictable!”  Then French would throw me a curve ball, and I’d be scratching my head, and turning the pages with bated breath to find out where she would go with it next.

Unfortunately, I can’t totally praise this book.  I’ll come right out and say that I hated the narrator, Detective Ryan.  He was an idiot and a hack.  I really enjoy novels where, even if I don’t like the characters, I can at least sympathize with them.  I couldn’t sympathize with Ryan at all.  He came off as fairly smart sometimes, then made completely idiotic, unprofessional decisions.  If he was a real person, I highly doubt he would have gotten any further in his career than mall security cop.

My one other problem with In The Woods was how characters sometimes seemed to act out-of-character for the sake of the plot.  This was glaringly evident to me in the scene where Detective Maddox was trying to coerce a confession out of the killer.  I said to myself, “Come on, this character isn’t that stupid.”  I felt that perhaps French was getting tired of the roundabout investigation and just wanted to speed the ending up.  Fair enough.  It was a pretty long book.

All said and done, I felt that In The Woods left a lot of loose ends that I, as a reader, would like to have seen resolved.  Though those nagging what-ifs are probably what will make the book memorable to me.  Compared to what I was expecting, I’d say that my complaints about In The Woods are pretty minor, and that if you ever have a night to yourself, you should cozy up on your couch and pick up this book.  It’s worth the read.