In the Woods
Detective Rob Ryan is called to a Dublin suburb to investigate the killing of a twelve-year-old girl found on an archaeological dig, in the same woods where, as a child, he was the only survivor of an incident that disappeared his two best friends without a trace. Partnered with his closest colleague, Cassie Maddox, he conceals his connection to the case and begins peeling back a community of developers, suspect families, and buried local history. Tana French threads the present-day murder together with the unresolved past so tightly that the novel becomes less a whodunit than a study of memory, self-deception, and the cost of what detectives choose not to see.
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What you might want to know about In the Woods
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Twenty years ago, three children went into a Dublin wood and only one came back, with no memory of what happened. Now a detective, he is assigned to the murder of a girl found at the same archaeological dig.
Yes. In the Woods (2007) is Tana French's debut and the first book in her loosely connected Dublin Murder Squad series. Each book has a different detective narrator from the same squad.
Yes. In the Woods won the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, and Macavity Award for Best First Novel in 2008. Tana French has continued to win major mystery awards across her career.
In the Woods was written by Tana French, published in 2007 by Penguin Books.
In the Woods is 528 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, In the Woods takes most readers 8 to 11 hours to finish.
In the Woods is a standalone novel by Tana French, not part of a series.
In the Woods is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.