Tana French's "Faithful Place"

My review in the Boston Phoenix:

"Frank Mackey's life changed when he was 19. The year was 1985, and he and his girlfriend Rosie Daly were about to run away together. Growing up in Faithful Place, one of working-class Dublin's more depressed byways, they knew they had no future in Ireland, particularly because Rosie's aspiring family despised Frank's booze-ruined clan. London — freedom — beckoned, and they were making their break.

Except that Rosie never showed, and the letter Frank found made it seem she shared her parents' aversion to his violent, alcoholic family. So he went off alone, hating everyone who'd doomed him to a lonely, loveless life.

Twenty-two years later and Frank Mackey is still in Dublin, though he's never returned to the old neighborhood. Now he's on the Undercover Squad, with a beautiful daughter, an educated ex-wife, and the kind of life nobody in Faithful Place could ever imagine. His only contact with the past is through one sister, Jackie. And so, when she calls to say that Rosie's suitcase has been found in the abandoned house where the lovers used to meet, the complications are not only criminal, they're personal, as Frank's past rises up to meet him with a vengeance....

Read more: http://thephoenix.com/Boston/arts/104817-tana-french-gets-her-characters-where-they-live/#ixzz0tRH35yrf