Greg asked Tana French:

So many authors develop a character and then write a long string of books, from 3 to 30, based around the one character. But reading your books, each one is individual, with its own set of characters and a rather loose connection to the others. In many ways, this is very refreshing. Why do you prefer to write completely new story lines rather than revisiting established characters?

Tana French In terms of theme, this way gives me a lot more freedom. For any given person, there are only a certain amount of core issues that run through the very heart of his or her life. If you stick with the same narrator, then you have to either stick with that narrator's themes, or else write books where your narrator isn't really at the heart of the narrative - and neither of those really interests me. I love reading the classic-style series that revolve around one narrator's life, but I don't want to write them.

The changing narrators mean I can focus on a different set of themes every time. In In the Woods, both the plot and the narrator's life revolve around memory and the enmeshed relationship between past and present; in Broken Harbour, both the crime and the narrator's life revolve around the idea of following the rules and what happens when the rules turn around and kick you in the teeth; in The Secret Place, all the characters and the crime are fundamentally about identity - not only how you define yourself, but whom you allow to define you. I like the extra scope that the changing narrator gives me.

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