Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Teenage Kinks

The Secret Place by Tana French

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Teenagers are weird. I like them. I teach high school; it’s not a job where you’ll last long if you don’t like the target demographic. But they are weird. Half their brains are all grown up and the other half is stuck in childhood. Not always the right parts. They are fiercely loyal, especially to their friends, and they’re at the point where they are developing their own world. Parents not allowed. Except when they get stuck, of course. If you’re lucky. Detective Stephen Moran […]

Books about murders that aren’t about murders at all

In the Woods by Tana French

The Likeness by Tana French

Faithful Place by Tana French

Broken Harbor by Tana French

The Secret Place by Tana French

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I feel a little bad this review, because these are excellent novels that deserve more than the fly-by treatment I’m about to give them. But I read these months ago, and I’m barely managing to accomplish a half Cannonball this year because writing reviews just isn’t happening for me lately. I have had the Dublin Murder Squad books on my TBR for some time, prompted by the positive reviews of many Cannonballers. Amusingly (to myself), putting the series out of mind for several years led […]

Belated Bingo – Not My Wheelhouse

The Secret Place by Tana French

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TANA FRENCH TANA FRENCH. TANA. FRENCH. TANA FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENCH. I. Love. Tana French. She. Is. The Best. The reason that this was on my bingo card as “Not My Wheelhouse” because I pondered and was surprised to discover that murder mysteries are no longer my wheelhouse, it is just not a genre I really turn to anymore, and um, that’s got to change, because never am I more engrossed then when watching a murder mystery unfold and then unravel. In doing some reading about French I […]

Small Misunderstandings and Major Desillusions

Broken Harbour by Tana French

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Primarily, reviews are about preference: did I like this book? Was it good? Usually, the two converge; what is or what isn’t good is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. Occasionally, though, these two interlinked questions separate themselves. So what do you do when a book is very good, but you’re not sure you liked it? Experienced detective Michael “Scorcher” Kennedy is called to investigate an unusually grisly crime scene: at a half-finished housing development – abandoned during the financial crisis – a […]

Psycho Killer, Qu’est-ce que c’est?

In the Woods by Tana French

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Detective novels are a difficult concept to grasp, at some level. Why do we purposely seek out the sort of thing – violence, grisly murders, sex crimes, blood and viscera – we would do anything to avoid in real life? Then there are the tropes of the genre itself that work both for and against it, from the hyperconfident, competent yet over-empathic medical examiner to the tortured detective from a broken home and, more tellingly, the killer’s psychopathy. The majority of all murders are crimes […]

Our House, in the Middle of our Heath

The Likeness by Tana French

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I used to share a house with nine other people. They were cool people, all nine of them, but it was still far from perfect. I lacked a sense of privacy, even with my own room. I prefer going about things on my own. I can only imagine what it must have been like to spend every night in forceful merriment. In that sense, I tip my hat in the direction of the main character of The Likeness. Detective Cassandra “Cassie” Maddox receives a phone […]



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