The Secret Place

Starred review from July 28, 2014
In French’s mesmerizing fifth Dublin Murder Squad mystery (after 2012’s Broken Harbor), Det. Stephen Moran, who works in the cold-case unit, is biding his time until he can make the Murder Squad. When 16-year-old Holly Mackey, a colleague’s daughter, shows up with a clue to an old crime, Moran sees his chance. A student at St. Kilda’s boarding school, Holly vividly remembers the previous year’s murder of Chris Harper, a popular teen from Colm’s, the neighboring boys’ school. From the St. Kilda’s personal notice board known as the Secret Place, Holly brings Moran a photo of Chris with the words “I know who killed him” pasted across his chest. Moran joins forces with the murder squad’s feisty Det. Antoinette Conway, and the pair visit the school, setting off a chain of events that ensnares Holly and her three best mates. French stealthily spins a web of teenage secrets with a very adult crime at the center. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary, TV & Film Agency.

Starred review from August 1, 2014
A hint of the supernatural spices the latest from a mystery master as two detectives try to probe the secrets teenage girls keep-and the lies they tell-after murder at a posh boarding school. The Dublin novelist (Broken Harbor, 2012, etc.) has few peers in her combination of literary stylishness and intricate, clockwork plotting. Here, French challenges herself and her readers with a narrative strategy that finds chapters alternating between two different time frames and points of view. One strand concerns four girls at exclusive St. Kilda's who are so close they vow they won't even have boyfriends. Four other girls from the school are their archrivals, more conventional and socially active. The novel pits the girls against each other almost as two gangs, with the plot pivoting on the death of a rich boy from a nearby school who had been sneaking out to see at least two of the girls. The second strand features the two detectives who spend a long day and night at the school, many months after the unsolved murder. Narrating these chapters is Stephen, a detective assigned to cold cases, who receives an unexpected visit from one of the girls, Holly, a daughter of one of Stephen's colleagues on the force, who brings a postcard she'd found on a bulletin board known as "The Secret Place" that says "I know who killed him." The ambitious Stephen, who has a history with both the girl and her father, brings the postcard to Conway, a hard-bitten female detective whose case this had been. The chapters narrated by Stephen concern their day of interrogation and investigation at the school, while the alternating ones from the girls' perspectives cover the school year leading up to the murder and its aftermath. Beyond the murder mystery, which leaves the reader in suspense throughout, the novel explores the mysteries of friendship, loyalty and betrayal, not only among adolescents, but within the police force as well. Everyone is this meticulously crafted novel might be playing-or being played by-everyone else.

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April 15, 2014
A year after the body of swoon-worthy Chris Harper was dumped at St. Kilda's, a girls' school in a Dublin suburb, student Holly Mackey gives Det. Stephen Moran a photo of Chris she's found with the words "I know who killed him" inscribed on the back. From the multi-award-winning and "New York Times" best-selling French.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 24, 2014
French’s fifth Dublin Murder Squad entry focuses on Stephen Moran, a smart detective feeling his ambition cool in the cold-cases department. When 16-year-old Holly Mackey, a student at St. Kilda’s exclusive suburban school for girls, presents him with key information on the unsolved murder of a boy from a neighboring academy, he sees this as his ticket back into the city’s elite Murder Squad, where he once apprenticed with Holly’s father, Frank. But first he has to convince the detective assigned to the case—Antoinette Conway, the squad’s ultra-abrasive sole woman—to use him in the investigation. The book consists of Moran’s narration, broken by flashbacks from Holly and her closest schoolmates, recalling a time before the murder. Readers Hogan and Hutchinson, Dubliners as well as skilled performers, present the compelling prose with nuance and lyrical naturalness. Hogan captures Moran’s anxious desire to succeed and the brittle loneliness not quite hidden in Conway’s hard-boiled attitude. Hutchinson’s softer, higher-pitched voice clearly delineates Holly’s flashbacks, moving between a schoolgirl’s sentimentality and the snobbery, anger, and impatience of a temperamental teen. Most of the novel takes place at St. Kilda’s, and it’s a testament to the quality of the prose and the readers that, at 20 hours, it never feels claustrophobic. A Viking hardcover.