After a very long reading and blog hiatus, I finally picked up a book that made me pace around my house fuming. Like, genuinely pacing. I even grabbed my recorder so I could rant out loud because my brain was on fire.
So, what book did this to me?
Spoiler warning — because I’m about to lose my mind over this one.
Some Background
Before we get into it, let me paint a picture for you. If you’re here, you probably already know the title because you clicked on this post, but here’s some context:
I love mysteries. Always have.
Currently, my TV lineup includes Only Murders in the Building, High Potential, Matlock, Will Trent, Midsomer Murders, and Elsbeth. Basically, if there’s a detective on screen, I’m watching it.
Growing up, my mom’s house was a CSI household. Every week it was a competition to see who could guess the killer first. You would think I would get a break when I was over at my fathers. WRONG. He had a gift for calling the culprit by the second scene. This was with any sort of action movie, mystery show, or really just about anything. As a result I gained a skill that turned me into a lifelong armchair detective. Much to many of my friends annoyance, as most things do not shock me.
So when fantasy books stopped scratching my reading itch a few months ago, I turned to mysteries — my other great love. I’ve read Killers of a Certain Age, The Housemaid, First Lie Wins, and plenty of others that I can’t even remember right now. I have read some of Agatha Christie, Ruth Ware, and many others just escape me.
I say all of that to say I love guessing, I love puzzles, and I love stories that make me feel like I’m part of the investigation.
That’s the thrill for me: piecing clues together, spotting details others might miss. I’ll never be an actual detective (I don’t have the gumption for it), but I live for the chase on the page.
The Setup
Coming back to reading after a long break, I wanted to dive into something compelling. I have read some of the greats and some of the new and some of the okay. And I love it. I would never say I’m like Sherlock in the way that he thinks. But I can understand why Sherlock does what he does because it’s fun putting pieces together, noticing things some people don’t. So, I was coming back into reading after a long hiatus and said, let me read a mystery. I’d just finished Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio, which was good but ended a bit abruptly and the itched was not quite scratched. So… I turned to Reddit.
What I was looking for was a book version like the show Midsummer Murders, where we have reoccurring detectives and we have different crimes, different mysteries. Because the one thing that I have a problem with, with reading so many popcorn mysteries, is that like the detectives aren’t always fully fleshed out, or we do not have enough time to understand them. OR part of the story is understanding who the detective is, and why they’re solving the mystery.
Sometimes I don’t want that. Even though I know that’s why the TV shows work, they love the interpersonal conflicts and everything. I wanted a series where the detectives remain the same, but the mysteries change.
So at least then I would have one consistent factor, and then the change, the variable, was the crime itself. So Reddit was my answer, some recommended this book, and I said, wonderful, let’s go pick up the book.
In the Woods seemed perfect. Here’s the official blurb:
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home from play. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent wood.
When the police arrive, they find only one child gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin murder squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same wood, he and detective Cassie Maddox, his partner and closest friend, find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the unsolved mystery.
Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past. In the Woods is a richly atmospheric, stunning in its complexity, and utterly convincing and surprising to the end.
It’s atmospheric, it’s layered, and it promises two mysteries, twenty years apart. That’s catnip for me.
And at first? I was hooked.
The Hook
The book begins with a haunting, fractured memory — a child found covered in blood, unable to remember what happened. Then we jump twenty years forward to Detective Rob (Adam) Ryan returning to his hometown to solve another murder.
It was beautifully written, immersive, and smart.
One thing I love in mysteries: don’t treat me like I’m dumb. I don’t want “wink-wink, nudge-nudge, remember this for later.” I want to feel like a detective. Give me facts, let me decide what matters.
And In the Woods did that. It respected the reader’s intelligence. No spoon-feeding, no flashing neon signs pointing to the killer. I don’t want the wink, wink, nudge, nudge, pay attention to this, right? I don’t want that. I want to feel a part of the investigation. I want things to go subtly under the radar that give me a chance to catch it and go, ooh, they’re treating me like a detective.
I am being given facts, turthers, and I am allowed to make my own assumptions.
And Then… the SPOILERS
Okay. Spoilers ahead. Ready?
Rosalind did it.
Well — technically, she manipulated someone else into doing it. She used her 17-year-old “charm” to coerce a man into killing for her. Wild. And she’s a psychopath (the books description). So she doesn’t mind lying, blah, blah, blah.
As I was pacing my home I looked at Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone. And there are these rules, which are sadly engraved into my brain. where you have to meet the murderer in the first good chunk of the book. So immediately I’m on guard with every new character we meet in the first 100 pages.
I’m looking at everybody. And then there was this moment where Rosalind approaches our main character, Det. Ryan. And something, I was like, no, she did it. The book tried to push me in a different direction but I could not shake the idea that she had something to do with it, it was so glaringly obvious to me.
That’s not what my problem was.
The real problem? The central mystery — the one teased from the very first page — doesn’t connect. The childhood disappearance and the present-day murder? Completely unrelated.
And worse? We never find out what happened twenty years ago. Not even a hint. The entire time, there’s this ticking clock — a motorway project threatening to destroy any remaining evidence — but it doesn’t matter. Nothing is solved. Nothing connects.
After 429 pages, we’re left with no closure.
The Detective I Couldn’t Stand
And then there’s Rob Ryan himself.
Insufferable.
And really the only reason this 20 year old murder happened was just so that when he would return home, and descend basically into insanity. He was sleeping less, drinking more, losing his sense of reality and it made him like unlikable. And I know, and I know there’s books where not every main character is supposed to be likable, but it’s like to have an unlikable main character and to suffer through 429 pages of that, to not even get an answer to one of the two questions, you know, it’s just so infuriating.
At one point, he sleeps with his best friend and partner, Cassie Maddox, and then treats her horribly afterward — a move that adds nothing but frustration. It’s messy, but not in the way good drama is messy. Just… aimless.
The Final Straw
I mean, I clocked the killer early on. I didn’t clock the actual killer, but I clocked the mastermind. So that alone reduced the book down a peg or two. There is not a satisfying ending, just a brief flash forward, the motorway is getting put in, and the hope of any answer getting erased.
would I recommend this book? No.
I mean, I’ve just ruined it for you. So you probably wouldn’t read it to begin with, or you have read it, but I wouldn’t recommend it, regardless. Halfway through the book, I was telling people about it. People would be asking “Trevor, what book are you reading, I need a new recommendation.” and so I told them about this book and was saying “it’s really good so far.” Sadly I have to go back and tell these people not to waste their time.
The Aftermath
When I finished, I immediately ran to Reddit — and found I wasn’t alone. I wanted to see if someone knew the answer to the unsolved case, so I typed in Adam Ryan, In the Woods, and I found a very angry review. I have attached it below for you to read.
Now, to be fair, this was Tana French’s debut novel back in 2007. She’s written several more in the Dublin Murder Squad series since then, each focusing on a different detective. Maybe her later books are better. Maybe I’ll give her another shot.
But this one? I can’t. I spent hours of my life on it. It is not that I regret it, I just wish I had to hours back.
The Verdict
I am so sorry, but I needed to talk to somebody and I’m sure nobody, nobody cares. Nobody listens or reads this , but I do. And I don’t care.
This was supposed to be two mysteries in one. Instead, it’s one unsatisfying case and one lost cause.
But until the next book, which I’m now going to begrudgingly pick, because I have no idea what I want to read. Do I want to read another detective book that may leave me sad? Or do I want to read about lesbian vampires and read a book that has also been critically acclaimed? Or do I want to completely pivot, pick a random book? I don’t know. I mean, by the time anybody gets into these comments, I will have already picked my book and it will already hopefully be a partway through it.
Until then, that’s what you missed on The Last Page Tavern.
And hey — should I bring back What I Was Thinking, the podcast? I kind of miss yelling into the void. Let me know in the comments. I have attached my 24 minute rant to this post for you to listen if you would like. Let me know!
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