--- title: Faithful Place: The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books description: Find out why 'Faithful Place' by Tana French made the list. canonical: https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309229/faithful-place/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-10-03T11:56:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-03T00:20:48.655Z og:title: Faithful Place: The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books og:description: Here’s why it made the list og:url: https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309229/faithful-place/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77833c3243ca5290/698a407bcabb1d5191e51c4c/FaithfulPlace.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Faithful Place: The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Faithful Place: The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books twitter:description: Here’s why it made the list twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77833c3243ca5290/698a407bcabb1d5191e51c4c/FaithfulPlace.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 03, 2023 # Faithful Place by Tana French by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff  The joy of reading some mysteries comes from the lightly absurd: outrageous twists, ghastly violence, theatrical characters. [Tana French’s hard-boiled novels](https://time.com/3326574/tana-frenchs-relentless-mystery/) offer a wholly different kind of pleasure: the uncomfortable titillation of realism. American-born, Dublin-based French has made literary art of the gritty police procedural and populates her books with people who say things like, “the squealing little arse-gerbil” and “I filed him in my mental database under Useless Prick, for future reference.” Most of her books are about detectives in the fictional Dublin Murder Squad. Her 2010 novel _Faithful Place_—the source of both of those quotes—follows detective Frank Mackey as he investigates the case of his childhood sweetheart, who disappeared decades ago. Mackey’s personal connection to the mystery drags him toward unearthing long-buried secrets in his claustrophobic community and threatens to reveal the rotten core of a dysfunctional family. French has taken detours into other styles—in the standalone 2018 novel _The Witch Elm_, for example, she tells the story through a civilian instead of law enforcement—but her work shines most when she centers the detectives obsessing over a case, drinking bitter coffee in their unglamorous stakeout cars. —_Tessa Berenson Rogers_ **Buy Now:** _Faithful Place_ on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9780143119494) | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/47STKRE) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309229/faithful-place/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309229/faithful-place/"},"headline":"Faithful Place","datePublished":"2023-10-03T11:56:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:20:48.655Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309229/faithful-place/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77833c3243ca5290/698a407bcabb1d5191e51c4c/FaithfulPlace.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77833c3243ca5290/698a407bcabb1d5191e51c4c/FaithfulPlace.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309229/faithful-place/","name":"Faithful Place"}}]}] ```