Another wonderful book from Tana French in her series of linked mysteries in Dublin. A few faces from the past appear, there are references to the plot of Faithful Place, but there's no particular need to have read the earlier books (all of which have different protagonists, usually a minor character from the previous book). There's no reason not to read them all, and in order, either.

This book is more like In The Woods than the others: from the beginning, Mike "Scorcher" Kennedy tells you the case doesn't go right and tells you exactly when he screws up, even how. The book is weighted down by dread. It is dense and heavy -- and wonderful, if essentially despairing.

Kennedy starts out not entirely sympathetic, and he ends up still not entirely sympathetic, but in a very different way. You hear a fair bit of his backstory; like all her protagonists, Kennedy's past is tragic, his family loving in their way, but also isolated. Kennedy appears not to have any friends, either: there's no one who has his back. And this is what the tragedies in the book are about.

It wasn't obvious to me until well into the book how very unreliable a narrator Kennedy is. Do read this book, but read it in the bright sun.