![]() ![]() To be sure many of French’s novels do center on work relationships, namely the ones formed between cops. Reading a French novel you are led to ask not only whodunnit but, more esoterically, why do you have the friends you have what distinguishes relationships that are freely chosen from those mandated by expectations (family) or contingency (work) which comes first, selfhood or friendship are you drawn to your friends, and they to you, because of who you are or do you become who you are because of those friends? What sets her novels apart isn’t just her mastery of suspense-surprisingly rare in crime fiction-but her patient, intelligent consideration of friendship. But this isn’t just the fan in me talking. No surprise, then, I think French succeeds with close third-person narration as much as with first-person. (No accident that these are the most female-centered of her novels.) I especially love The Secret Place, set largely in a girl’s school, with its dreamy terrors, though, if pressed, I’d choose Broken Harbour (2012), set in the Gothic ruins of the Celtic Tiger’s economic collapse, as my favourite French. I even love the books that most readers dislike, The Likeness (2008) and The Secret Place (2014). ![]() I’m a huge fan of French’s in my opinion, there’s no better writer in crime fiction today. ![]()
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