The body of Katharine “Katy” Devlin was found on what was believed to be a sacrificial altar, leading some to believe that her death was connected to Satan worship. Artifacts were being uncovered that indicated the area had been a sacred religious site for pre-Christians during the Bronze Age. More than twenty years later, when Rob returned to Knocknaree as a detective with the Dublin Murder Squad, he discovered that much of the woods in which he had played with Jamie and Peter was the site of an archaeological dig. After Rob’s parents sent him off to boarding school, they moved from Knocknaree. When Rob did start talking, he remembered nothing about what had happened. Rob was found by police, so scared he was catatonic.

In 1984, the police were called when Rob, then known as Adam Ryan, and his friends Jamie and Peter did not return one night from playing in the woods near Knocknaree. Even though Rob knew that he should not get involved in the case, he swore to himself and to Cassie that he would be able to handle the stress of the present murder case as well as the mysteries of the past. Rob had not been there since Jamie and Peter disappeared and were never found. When he and his partner Cassandra “Cassie” Maddox were assigned a case, Rob was dismayed to learn that the victim had been killed in the Knocknaree woods, the place where Rob had grown up playing with his childhood friends, Jamie and Peter. In the psychological thriller In The Woods by Tana French, Adam “Rob” Robert Ryan, a detective with the Dublin Murder Squad, could not wait to get his first major murder case. The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: French, Tana.

In the woods tana french book review