I had been introduced to this author by a colleague in work. ‘Faithful Place’ intrigued me and was certainly an enjoyable foray into crime writing. The blurb for this gave little away, but I was hooked by the idea that someone who was murdered would have, even inadvertently, done something to ‘invite it in’.

I couldn’t resist checking out reviews on Amazon, and I’m not giving anything away to reveal that the novel opens with the deaths of two children and their father being discovered, and their mother being taken to intensive care. What follows is a detailed and thorough account of the investigation into the murder case by Scorcher Kennedy, Dublin’s star detective.

From the opening pages I felt like I trusted our narrator; he was a character that I wanted to do well. He was not without his flaws, and the effects on him and his personal life of the investigation were compelling reading.

I was less sure about his partner, rookie Richie Curran, but I felt the developing relationship between the two men was engaging, and allowed French to explain some of the procedure involved in the investigation without patronising us. At times the total immersion into the experience was far from comfortable, but I could not put the book down. Once it became clear that there were two suspects, neither of whom seemed completely plausible, I was desperately trying to work out what had happened. I didn’t come close!