I also owe huge thanks to the consistently amazing Darley Anderson and everyone at the agency, especially Mary, Emma, Rosanna, Pippa and Mandy; Andrea Schulz, Ciara Considine, Nick Sayers and Sue Fletcher, for their immense editorial skill, insight and wisdom; Breda Purdue, Ruth Shern, Joanna Smyth and everyone at Hachette Books Ireland; Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood and everyone at Hodder & Stoughton; Carolyn Coleburn, Angie Messina, the wonderful Ben Petrone, and everyone at Viking; Susanne Halbleib and everyone at Fischer Verlage; Rachel Burd; Steve Fisher of APA, the most patient man in LA; Dr Fearghas Ó Cochláin, for straightening out my haematomas; Sophie Hannah, for pointing me towards the title; Alex French, Susan Collins, Ann-Marie Hardiman, Jessica Ryan, Karen Gillece, Kendra Harpster, Kristina Johansen and Catherine Farrell, for every kind of support from practical to emotional to hilarious; David Ryan, top with smoked ham, bacon strips, ground beef, mushrooms and black olives, bake for ten minutes on pizza stone, serve with German Pilsner; my mother, Elena Lombardi; my father, David French; and, for more reasons every time, the man who can sort out the worst plot tangle before the starters arrive, my husband, Anthony Breatnach.

The Secret Place

Also by Tana French

THE SECRET PLACE

The first case involving Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran of the Dublin Murder Squad

I know who killed him

‘I know who killed him’

The message is written on a photograph of Chris Harper, a boy found murdered a year ago in the grounds of an exclusive girls’ boarding school. For Detective Stephen Moran, it could be his longed-for passport to the Dublin Murder Squad.

But don’t they say: ‘Be careful what you wish for’?

Moran and his irascible new boss Antoinette Conway have one nerve-shredding day to investigate. And every step they take leads back to a place they hardly dare go – to the ties that bound a group of adolescent girls to Chris Harper and to each other, to their friendships, their feuds, and their deepest, most dangerous secrets.

Read on for an extract from this gripping mystery . . .

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

She came looking for me. Most people stay arm’s length away. A patchy murmur on the tip-line, Back in ’95 I saw, no name, click if you ask. A letter printed out and posted from the wrong town, paper and envelope dusted clean. If we want them, we have to go hunting. But her: she was the one who came for me.

I didn’t recognise her. I was up the stairs and heading for the squad room at a bounce. May morning that felt like summer, juicy sun spilling through the reception windows, lighting the whole cracked-plaster room. A tune playing in my head, me humming along.