Read this after seeing "Dublin Murders" on BBC, which was based on this book and another by the same author. This book is about a body of a young boy found in the woods many years after he disappeared. The TV series mixed this plotline with one from the other book, so when I was reading this, I wasn't sure whether things that I remember from the TV series are going to happen in the book or not, which is a bit confusing.

The book's written in the first person by one of the detectives, who has a lot of interior monologue.

At about a quarter of the way through it, I think I know from the TV series "whodunnit" but I can't be certain exactly which events lead to that conclusion. Knowing who the murderer is (or at least, believing that I knew) means that there seems a lot of stuff that's just not relevant: e.g. suspicion falling on X, and various investigations into X, when I know that this is all a waste of time (but again, I can't remember whether there was something uncovered in the investigation into X that was relevant, and if it was, whether it's relevant to this book or the other one).

When he has conversations with Rosalind who I know from the tv series is involved in the murder it seems pretty obvious that she’s got something going on. Not sure how much that’s just because I’ve seen the tv though.

I don't think the book seems fantastically good (it got very good reviews on amazon). And maybe this is partly down to the reader of the audiobook, who I don't really like - he doesn't seem particularly likeable, and I don't think he's getting the articulation right. He pronounced Eurydice wrong. Also talks about a tear of mascara and pronounces it "tare", but two sentences later corrects the pronunciation when he says something like "she wiped the tear away".

It was way too long: the whole book was 19 hours of audio.

There was a passage about Cassie's experience with a student who was psychopathic was good in an unnerving way: she made friends with him but resisted when he made a pass. Next day, none of her friends would talk to her: she eventually got one of them to explain why: it turned out he'd told them that she'd been bothering him and that had told him if he didn't do what she wanted, she'd go to the police and tell them he'd tried to rape her. Her (previously) best friend believed this and wanted nothing more to do with her. He later whispered in her ear: "if I were to come to your room tonight and rape you, who'd believe you?"

Towards the end, I realised that some of the book was quite gripping, and it was the bits where action was being described. But lots of it is him just ruminating to himself, or explaining his thoughts to us, and that wasn't great. Didn't like him at all - maybe that's a mark that the writing was good, but it just wasn't that enjoyable when you isolated in his company

You never get to find out who did the 80s crime which is either a good thing or a cop out

Completed : 06-Dec-2019 (audiobook)