Tana French Books in Order
See all Tana French books in order, with summaries, background on the Dublin Murder Squad and Cal Hooper series, plus suggestions on where to start reading.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
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Publication Order
10 books
In the Woods
by Tana French
2007
Detective Rob Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox investigate the murder of a twelve year old girl at a woodland dig site near Dublin, a case that eerily echoes Ryan's own childhood trauma in the same woods and threatens his career.
The Likeness
by Tana French
2008
After a young woman who looks exactly like Cassie Maddox is found murdered, the Dublin detective is persuaded to go undercover as the victim, moving into her strange, close knit household to catch a killer without losing herself to the role.
Faithful Place
by Tana French
2010
When builders uncover a suitcase and a body in his old neighborhood, undercover cop Frank Mackey is dragged back to the Liberties, forced to face his violent family and the vanished girlfriend he once planned to run away with.
Broken Harbor
by Tana French
2012
In Broken Harbor, star detective Mick Scorcher Kennedy and his rookie partner investigate the brutal attack on the Spain family in a half built coastal housing estate, where eerie details and Scorcher's own past slowly unravel the official story.
The Secret Place
by Tana French
2014
At a Dublin girls' boarding school, a postcard appears on a student confessions board declaring 'I know who killed him', sending Detective Stephen Moran and Antoinette Conway back into a year old murder and the furious loyalties of teenage cliques.
The Trespasser
by Tana French
2016
Detective Antoinette Conway, already fighting harassment on the Dublin Murder Squad, catches a supposed lovers' quarrel gone wrong when Aislinn Murray is found dead, but small inconsistencies and squad politics make her suspect a setup that could end her career.
The Witch Elm
by Tana French
2018
Easygoing Toby Hennessey's life shatters after a violent home invasion leaves him with patchy memories, and while he is recovering at his family's Ivy House, a skull discovered in the old elm tree forces him to question his past and himself.
The Searcher
by Tana French
2020
Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper buys a crumbling cottage in a remote Irish village, hoping for peace, until sharp eyed teenager Trey asks him to find a missing brother and his quiet life turns into a slow, dangerous investigation.
The Hunter
by Tana French
2024
Two years later, Cal and teenage Trey are repairing furniture in Ardnakelty when her charming, unreliable father returns with an English investor and a plan to hunt for gold, pulling the village into a web of cons, debts, and simmering violence.
The Keeper
by Tana French
2026
In the third Cal Hooper novel, well liked Rachel Holohan disappears on a freezing night in rural Ardnakelty and is found dead in the river, dragging Cal and his fiancee Lena into a bitter local feud and a scheme that threatens the village.
Where should I start?
If you want dark, psychological police procedurals: In the Woods → The Likeness → Faithful Place
If you enjoy layered squad and school politics: Broken Harbor → The Secret Place → The Trespasser
If you prefer standalone psychological suspense: The Witch Elm
If you want a slower rural mystery with an outsider hero: The Searcher → The Hunter
Author bio
Tana French writes crime novels that linger on people as much as puzzles, set mostly in and around Dublin and shaped by her earlier life as an actor. Her books mix police investigations with close attention to memory, place, and the quiet pressures of everyday life.
She was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1973 and spent her childhood moving between the United States, Ireland, Italy, and Malawi as her father's work as an economist took the family abroad.
French settled in Dublin in 1990, studied acting at Trinity College Dublin, and went on to work in theatre, film, and voiceover. Years of rehearsals, listening, and embodying different characters helped give her the ear for dialogue and interior monologue that readers now associate with her fiction.
During long stretches between acting jobs, she began drafting a crime novel for herself, drawing on the mysteries she had loved since childhood. That book became In the Woods, published in 2007, which introduced the Dublin Murder Squad and won major awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry prizes for best first novel.
Over the next decade she expanded that loose series through The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, and The Trespasser, each one narrated by a different detective whose personal history collides with a new case. The books explore friendship, family, class, and the boom and bust years in Ireland as much as they track clues.
After six Dublin Murder Squad novels, French moved into standalones and a new sequence. The Witch Elm follows a man whose sense of his own luck unravels after a violent attack and the discovery of a skull in a family tree, while the Cal Hooper books, beginning with The Searcher and The Hunter and continuing with The Keeper, shift to a retired Chicago cop in rural western Ireland.
Across her work she returns to questions of identity, memory, and what people will do to protect those they love, often leaving a few threads unresolved to keep the stories close to real life rather than tidy puzzles.
French now lives in Dublin with her family, holds American and Italian citizenship, and still talks about acting as the training ground that shaped her approach to character on the page. She continues to write crime fiction that treats detectives, suspects, and victims as complicated people first and pieces in a mystery second.
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