My Amazon.com account knows that I have pretty awesome taste in literature.  However, it thinks I have crappy taste in music, and this is because I am constantly buying my son MP3s for his iPod, stuff like FloRida and Ke$ha (ok, some of that may also be on MY iPod). Sometimes I get e-mails with recommendations on music that I am just too ashamed to even blog about, because of these purchases.

But on books, like I said, Amazon is usually dead on. Anyway, Amazon’s been telling me for a while that I need to check out the latest from Tana French. I had never heard of her, but I had put her into a Janet Evanovich-type bracket, with absolutely nothing to base that on except that one time I was at Borders, rest its soul, and the offerings of those two authors were situated somewhat near one another on the shelves in front. And I guess what I mean by that is that she writes a ton of content, which is entertaining but doesn’t have much literary substance.

So, rather than buy it on Amazon, (sorry, trusted website!) I decided to see what my library had. Rather than her newest work, I chose In the Woods, her first. I had to wait a considerable amount of time on the reserve list for it to come in, and in all honesty had forgotten I had placed the hold on it.

When I finally got my hands on this book, I was glad Amazon had told me about her. French has beautiful prose, and wove an intricate mystery and a bit of a love story together to create one of the best books I’ve probably read this year. It’s about a young girl who is murdered, her body discovered on the site of an archaeological dig. The detective, Rob (Adam) Ryan has a personal connection to the crime, which he keeps secret. His partner, Cassie Maddox, who he is most definitely in love with but won’t admit to himself or anyone else, is his closest friend and the only one who knows. As they work to solve the present day case, details from the past bubble up to the surface.

I’ll definitely be adding the works of Irish author Tana French to my “must-read” list, and can’t wait to see if these characters appear in any future novels. Thanks, Amazon!