The sensational new novel from one of the most talented crime writers alive” (The Washington Post)
The photo on the card shows a boy who was found murdered, a year ago, in the grounds of a girls’ boarding school in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. The caption says I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.
Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin’s Murder Squadand one morning, sixteen-yearold Holly Mackey brings him this photo. The Secret Place,” a board where the girls at St Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.
But everything they find leads them back to Holly’s group of close-knit friends and their fierce enemies, a rival cliqueand to the tangled web of relationships that bound all the girls to Chris Harper. Every step in their direction turns up the pressure. Antoinette Conway is already suspicious of Stephen’s links to the Mackey family. St Kilda’s will go a long way to keep murder outside their walls. Holly’s father, Detective Frank Mackey, is circling, ready to pounce if any of the new evidence points towards his daughter. And the private underworld of teenage girls can be more mysterious and more dangerous than either of the detectives imagined.
The Secret Place is a powerful, haunting exploration of friendship and loyalty, and a gripping addition to the Dublin Murder Squad series.
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2014: A fallow murder investigation is resuscitated when Holly Mackey (daughter of Frank Mackey, both last seen in Faithful Place) brings Detective Stephen Moran (Mackey’s protege in Faithful Place) a fresh clue she’s discovered at her posh girls’ school where the murder took place. Hoping this is his chance to trade Cold Cases for the Dublin Murder Squad and revive his own career, Moran finagles himself a partnership with prickly lead cop Antoinette Conway. Together the detectives try to find the truth inside the secrets, loyalties, and misdirection thrown their way by two rival groups of teenage schoolgirls. As in her previous books, just when you think you’ve solved the mystery another curious twist appears and French keeps you guessing right up until the very end. –Seira Wilson
