The Secret Place

French dives in to the complex, socially perilous world of teenage girls in her fifth entry in the "Dublin Murder Squad" series (after Broken Harbor). Det. Stephen Moran sees his chance to leave the stultifying cold cases squad when a young girl shows up at his office bearing the photo of a dead teenage boy inscribed with the words, "I know who killed him." The unsolved case is high profile—the body was found at a ritzy boarding school—and Moran wants to make his mark, even if it means briefly partnering with the notoriously difficult Det. Antoinette Conway. Drawn out over a taut 24 hours, the novel plays with French's usual format by switching perspectives between the teenage girls and Moran. The result is haunting. French plumbs the depths of high school nostalgia while simultaneously shredding the "best days of our lives" myth with expertly drawn teenage social structures in all of their closeness, cruelty, and desperation. While there is only one murder victim, Moran, Conway, and their young suspects are all witnesses to the often crushing ramifications of standing out from the crowd.