Author Guide · Crime Fiction
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Tana French found the idea for her first novel on an archaeological dig, looking at the wood beside the site and asking what would happen if three children went in to play and only one came out. Born in Vermont in 1973 and raised in Ireland, Italy, the United States and Malawi, she trained as an actor at Trinity College Dublin and wrote In the Woods in the long gaps between acting jobs. Published in 2007, it won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry awards for a first novel and began the Dublin Murder Squad, six books each narrated by a different detective. Since 2020 she has written the Cal Hooper trilogy, set in a village in the west of Ireland, and her novels have sold more than eight million copies. This guide covers her 10 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 2007–2026 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Tana French has published ten novels: the six Dublin Murder Squad books, from In the Woods (2007) to The Trespasser (2016), the stand-alone The Witch Elm (2018), and the Cal Hooper trilogy, The Searcher (2020), The Hunter (2024) and The Keeper (2026). Start with In the Woods. Below are all ten in order, with which books connect to which.
Where to Start with Tana French
If you want the Dublin Murder Squad from the beginning
→ In the Woods (2007) — the 2007 debut that won the Edgar for a first novel.
If you want a way into the squad that needs no earlier book
→ Faithful Place (2010) — a detective going back to his own family in the Liberties.
If you want a slower mystery in the Irish countryside
→ The Searcher (2020) — the first Cal Hooper book.
If you want something outside both series
→ The Witch Elm (2018) — a victim, not a detective, tells the story.
10 Tana French Books, in Order
In the Woods
In 1984 three twelve-year-olds go into the wood at Knocknaree, outside Dublin; only Adam Ryan comes out, with no memory of what happened. Twenty years later, as Detective Rob Ryan, he and his partner Cassie Maddox investigate the murder of a twelve-year-old girl found on an archaeological dig in the same wood. It won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, as well as the Anthony, Macavity and Barry awards for a first novel.
The Likeness
A young woman is found dead in a cottage near Glenskehy. She looks exactly like Cassie Maddox, and she has been living under Lexie Madison, a name Cassie once used undercover. Cassie’s former boss, Frank Mackey, persuades her to take Lexie’s place in Whitethorn House, with the four Trinity students Lexie lived with, all of them suspects.
Faithful Place
In December 1985 nineteen-year-old Frank Mackey waited for his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, to run away with him to London; she never came, and he left alone. Twenty-two years later, now an undercover detective, he learns that her suitcase has been found behind a fireplace on Faithful Place, in Dublin’s Liberties, and goes back to the family he walked out on. It was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel and the International Dublin Literary Award.
Broken Harbour
Patrick Spain and his two children are found dead in a half-built, half-abandoned ghost estate outside Dublin, and his wife Jennifer is in intensive care. Detective Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy, the squad’s star, and his rookie partner Richie Curran first see a murder-suicide by a man ruined by the recession. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for mystery/thriller and the Irish Book Award for crime fiction. Published in the US as Broken Harbor.
The Secret Place
A year after a boy, Chris Harper, was found murdered in the grounds of St Kilda’s, a girls’ boarding school in Dublin, Frank Mackey’s sixteen-year-old daughter Holly brings Detective Stephen Moran a card from the school’s anonymous noticeboard: “I know who killed him.” Moran and Antoinette Conway reopen the case; the novel alternates between their investigation and the girls in the year before the murder.
The Trespasser
Antoinette Conway, worn down by thankless cases and harassment from colleagues on the Murder Squad, narrates. With Stephen Moran she gets what looks like a lovers’ quarrel: Aislinn Murray, found dead beside a dinner table set for two. Conway feels she has seen Aislinn before, and begins to wonder whether someone on the squad wants the case closed fast.
The Witch Elm
Toby Hennessy, a lucky young Dubliner, is nearly beaten to death by burglars and left with gaps in his memory. He moves into Ivy House, the family home, to care for his dying uncle Hugo, until his cousin’s children find a skull in the hollow of the wych elm in the garden. Her first novel narrated by someone outside the police; published in the UK as The Wych Elm.
The Searcher
Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago police detective whose marriage has ended, moves to Ardnakelty, a small village in the west of Ireland, to be left alone. A local teenager, Trey Reddy, starts hanging around and asks him to find out what happened to Trey’s older brother Brendan, who the village says simply ran off.
The Hunter
Trey’s unreliable father, Johnny Reddy, comes back to Ardnakelty with Cillian Rushborough, a stranger he met in a London pub, and a story that there is gold in the land around the village. Cal, who has become a stand-in father to Trey, doubts the scheme, and the stranger’s arrival ends in murder.
The Keeper
Nineteen-year-old Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river near Ardnakelty, possibly a suicide, on the night she visited Cal’s fiancée, Lena Dunne. Cal’s questions run into the plans of the meat processor Tommy Moynihan, whose family is buying up farmland for a development that splits the village. It is the third and final Cal Hooper novel.
In What Order to Read Tana French
The Dublin Murder Squad is a loose series, and the order is: In the Woods (2007), The Likeness (2008), Faithful Place (2010), Broken Harbour (2012), The Secret Place (2014) and The Trespasser (2016). Each book has a new narrator, usually a minor character from the book before: Cassie Maddox from In the Woods narrates The Likeness; Frank Mackey, her undercover boss there, narrates Faithful Place; Scorcher Kennedy, who appears in Faithful Place, narrates Broken Harbour; Stephen Moran, a young detective in Faithful Place, leads The Secret Place; and his partner Antoinette Conway narrates The Trespasser. Every case is complete in itself, so you can start anywhere, but reading in order lets you see each narrator from outside first.
The Cal Hooper books must be read in order: The Searcher (2020), The Hunter (2024), The Keeper (2026). They follow the same people in Ardnakelty, Cal, Trey Reddy and Lena Dunne, and each depends on what happened in the one before. The Witch Elm (2018) stands alone and can be read at any point.
A reading path
1. In the Woods (2007)
2. The Likeness (2008)
3. Faithful Place (2010)
4. The Searcher (2020)
5. The Hunter (2024)
6. The Keeper (2026)
The years · 1973–2026
Quick facts about Tana French
- Known for
- Literary crime novels set in Ireland, each told by one narrator whose own past is tangled up in the case, above all the Dublin Murder Squad series.
- 1973
- Born in Burlington, Vermont
- 1990
- Settles in Dublin
- 2007
- In the Woods
- 2016
- The Trespasser, sixth Murder Squad book
- 2026
- The Keeper ends the Cal Hooper trilogy
- Born
- 10 May 1973, Burlington, Vermont; her father, an economist, worked on resource management in developing countries
- Childhood
- Grew up in Ireland, Italy, the United States and Malawi
- Training
- Trained as an actor at Trinity College Dublin; has worked in theatre, film and voiceover
- Lives
- In Dublin since 1990, with her husband and two daughters
- Prizes
- Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry awards for In the Woods; Los Angeles Times Book Prize and Irish Book Award for Broken Harbour
- Sales
- More than eight million copies worldwide, according to her publisher
The red mark is 2007: In the Woods, the debut that began the Dublin Murder Squad.
How Tana French Writes: Playing the Narrator
French wrote the Dublin Murder Squad books and The Witch Elm in the first person, and she has said that writing that way is “basically the same skill as acting”: she plays her narrator on paper rather than on stage. Her narrators are not neutral. Rob Ryan in In the Woods opens his story by warning the reader that detectives lie; Frank Mackey is investigating his own first love; Toby in The Witch Elm cannot trust his own memory. Much of the tension comes from the gap between what the narrator tells you and what you can see.
She does not plan her plots. In a 2008 interview she said that when she starts a book she does not know where it will end, and that she did not know who the killer was in In the Woods until about a third of the way through. She begins, in her words, with a narrator and the kernel of a premise. That is why her books are long and slow by genre standards, and why the solution often matters less than what the case does to the person solving it.
Ireland’s recent history runs underneath the cases. In the Woods turns on a motorway that will destroy an archaeological site; Broken Harbour is set on a ghost estate left half-built by the crash; Faithful Place goes back to the Liberties of the 1980s. The Cal Hooper books move to a farming village in the west, where outsiders, money and land, from a gold scheme to a development, test how far people will protect their own.
Watch
Tana French in conversation with Jamie Lee Curtis
In a Live Talks Los Angeles event first shown in November 2021, the actor Jamie Lee Curtis talks with French about The Searcher, the first Cal Hooper novel.
Frequently asked questions about Tana French’s books
How many books has Tana French written?
Ten novels: the six Dublin Murder Squad books (2007–2016), the stand-alone The Witch Elm (2018) and the three Cal Hooper books (2020–2026). All ten are on this page; she has not published story collections or nonfiction books.
What are Tana French’s books in order?
In the Woods (2007), The Likeness (2008), Faithful Place (2010), Broken Harbour (2012), The Secret Place (2014), The Trespasser (2016), The Witch Elm (2018), The Searcher (2020), The Hunter (2024) and The Keeper (2026).
What order should I read the Dublin Murder Squad books in?
Publication order: In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbour, The Secret Place, The Trespasser. Each book has a different narrator, usually a minor character from the previous one, and each case is complete, so you can read them separately. Reading in order means you meet each narrator from the outside first, and The Secret Place makes more sense once you know Frank Mackey and his daughter Holly from Faithful Place.
What order are the Cal Hooper books in?
The Searcher (2020), The Hunter (2024) and The Keeper (2026). Read them in that order: they follow Cal Hooper, Trey Reddy and Lena Dunne in the village of Ardnakelty, and the story carries over from book to book. The Keeper is the third and final book.
Where should I start with Tana French?
With In the Woods, the first Dublin Murder Squad book. If you would rather begin with a self-contained story, Faithful Place needs no earlier book. For a slower, rural mystery, start the Cal Hooper trilogy with The Searcher.
What is Tana French’s most famous book?
In the Woods (2007), her debut. It won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Anthony, Macavity and Barry awards for a first novel, and with The Likeness it was adapted for television as Dublin Murders.
Is Dublin Murders based on Tana French’s books?
Yes. Dublin Murders, an eight-part series written by Sarah Phelps, combines In the Woods and The Likeness. Killian Scott and Sarah Greene play Rob and Cassie (Rob’s surname becomes Reilly). It was first broadcast on BBC One on 14 October 2019, then on RTÉ One and on Starz in the US.
Is the 1984 mystery in In the Woods solved?
The murder Rob and Cassie investigate in the present is solved. What happened to Rob’s two friends in the wood in 1984 is never explained, and they are never found. Many readers find this frustrating; it is a deliberate choice, and none of the later books returns to it.
Has Tana French won any awards?
Yes. In the Woods won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry awards for a first novel in 2008. Broken Harbour won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for mystery/thriller and the Irish Book Award for crime fiction in 2012. Faithful Place was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel and the International Dublin Literary Award.
Is Tana French Irish?
She is usually described as an Irish writer. She was born in Burlington, Vermont, on 10 May 1973, grew up in Ireland, Italy, the United States and Malawi, and has lived in Dublin since 1990. All of her novels are set in Ireland.
Footnotes
- Tana French — Wikipedia
- In the Woods — Wikipedia
- Broken Harbour — Wikipedia
- The Keeper (novel) — Wikipedia
- Tana French — Penguin Random House
- Interview with Tana French — Bookreporter, 2008
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all hers.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective.”
— Tana French, In the Woods (2007)
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