I picked up this book hoping for something that would be simple and fast-paced to get me out of a reading slump, and I sort of inadvertently succeeded by choosing a book I disliked so much that I wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. Honestly, a lot of this can probably be read as criticism of the entire genre of crime fiction, which I already knew I didn't like so I honestly don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, grain of salt and I'm going to be quick.
As far as I know, Tana French is a woman, but it seemed for some reason that she tried to make this book feel like it had been written by a man by adopting classic gender tropes ie. making every woman tiny and delicate and small and beautiful (but never wear makeup). overall Not Like Other Girls. It was very annoying in the first solid chuck of the book.
I thought the plot was really slow and not very suspenseful. It was really just a lot of boring conversations with people interspersed with moments of self-indulgent melodrama on the part of the protagonist. Every major plot point was literally him just being like And then I remembered!! and it Hit me like a Ton of Bricks!!!!! super boring.