The Secret Place

In an expensive private school for girls, a photograph of a smiling boy from the neighboring boys' school appears on the bulletin board. Over the boy's face is an inscription made of cut-out letters: I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM. Chris had been killed almost a year ago, his body found on the idyllic lawn of the girls' school. How did he get there? Who was he meeting with? Who is the killer? All these questions remained unanswered. Until one day, a girl appears at the police station and hands detective Stephen Moran this photograph with the inscription. Stephen has been waiting for his chance to get into the homicide department of the Dublin police for years. And this chance has come to him. Together with Antoinette Conway, a notorious bitch of the homicide department, he goes to St. Kilda's school to investigate. They do not understand that they are about to find themselves in a real hornet's nest, where young girls, seemingly innocent and sweet, are actually more dangerous than the most terrifying criminals.

The new detective from Tana French, who has earned the nickname “the Irish Donna Tartt,” is a grand psychological novel built on an excellent detective framework. It is both a psychological drama and a coming-of-age story, and of course, a classic detective novel with a closed circle of suspects, unfolding in the strange world of a private school.