I am back with another book review, today it is The Trespasser by Tana French. Thank you so much to Penguin Random House for providing me with a copy of this book for an honest review. As always, all opinions are my own.
Oh boy, where do I even start?
Well, let me first say that I haven't read the other 5 books in this series. I don't think it is necessary to read them all in order/before starting one of them, but I think it might have made me like the book a little bit more.
To be honest, this book let me down. I was expecting a thriller and I got a mildly suspenseful crime fiction. There wasn't really too much that was super exciting in this book.
The story follows Detective Antoinette Conway, the only female detective on the whole Murder Squad in Dublin. Normally, I'm ok with the whole "I'm the only woman, the men don't treat me like a cop" etc. but in this book it was just so over done. Maybe if I got some of the backstory as to what happens with Conway before this book, I wouldn't dislike it so much, but I found it so irritating. Even her daily interactions were a struggle to read, she would have a conversation with another detective and basically translate what he was 'actually' saying. It was hard to know if that's actually what they meant, or if she was just so sure they were being mean and giving her double meanings. Her bias clouded whatever you read, so you are constantly trying to figure out if she's just sabotaging herself or she's actually being messed with.
In terms of the crime itself, basically a young woman is found dead in her home after an anonymous caller reported that she "needed help." The detectives immediately suspect the boyfriend, he was coming over for dinner, rang the bell, and when she didn't answer, went home. But it becomes clear pretty early on that he couldn't have killed her, he doesn't seem the type. Still, every other lead the detectives get is a dead end.
I think my biggest problem with this book was the fact that there were no other suspects that seemed plausible, but at the same time, the obvious one just wasn't fitting the bill. It was had for me, as the reader, to get into the story because I just didn't feel like we had enough information to find any more suspects and because of that, the story dragged on.
This book is almost 500 pages, and it easily could have been reduced. There was a lot of extra stuff that didn't really seem necessary to me, then again, it might be because it was part of the series overall, not just this book.
The writing itself was good, like I said earlier, a little slow, but not that bad. I did find myself skimming a bit, especially towards the end, just because I was ready to get it over with.
I did almost DNF it about halfway through, I just didn't feel invested in the story and that it wasn't really going anywhere. In the end, I finished it and just feel meh about it.
I think my main problem lies in the fact that this book focuses on the detectives and their lives, and less on the actual crime. I think that for these sorts of books, I would prefer the crime and less on the detectives, unless it has real value to the story. I just don't know if the personal elements, at least of Conway, really added anything to the story.
Overall, this just wasn't my cup of tea.