IN THE WOODS by TANA FRENCH

This is a book that you have to read in one go. It was an excellent read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Adam is a detective in the Irish Police force. As a young child he was part of a tragic incident in which two of his best friends simply disappeared. Due to the trauma Adam could not recall what actually happened and todate the case remains unresolved. Adam has also changed his name to Rob.
Fast forward to the present day and Adam and his partner detective Cassie find themselves on a case where a 12 year old has been found murdered in the same woods where Adam's friends disappeared so long ago.

Is there a link between the cases? who would want to murder Katy and the manner in which the murder is done and the sexual abuse of the body leaves a lot of questions. The Devlin family in itself are peculiar - the father heavily involved in a move to prevent a motorway coming through the wood leading to the question whether property developers were sending a sign to him to lay off, the mother Margaret vague and spacey - could she have caused Katy's severe gastric illnesses deliberately, the elder sister Rosalind - having secrets of her own and Jessie Katy's twin, not quite right but no one actually says so.

We also have running parallel to the story the story of Cassie and Adam - best friends in the most platonic way and Sam who is added to the mix as a detective who can help. How the relationship changes from being platonic to one which is not so and how it effects their working relationship so badly - to the extent that it seems that they cannot even work together. It spoiled it for all of them.

The solving of the murder was for me a surprise. It is always good when you can never solve it yourself till the end when all is revealed.  The breakdown of the relationship between Cassie and Adam was sad, specially when you considered how good it was before. I think Cassie is strong enough to be a repeat character in another book - someone like Lynley in the P D James's books or Miss. Marple in the Agatha Christie series.

On a non book note, today hopefully I can start on the Christmas gifts for the fifty children in the two Homes I help out at. Detailed lists of what each one wants has been given - I certainly like that children have individual ideas on what suits them. I hate the idea of institutionalized sameness!  Hopefully I can find everything to suit all.