Get your first book for just $5.

Join today!

We’ll make this quick.

First, enter your email. Then choose your move.

By pressing "Pick a book now" or "Pick a book later", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Get your first book for just $5.

Join today!
undefined

You did it!

Your account is now up to date.

get the appget the app

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

get the ios appget the android app

Already have the app? Explore here.

get the ios appget the android app
The Trespasser by Tana French

Mystery

The Trespasser

by Tana French

Excellent choice

Just enter your email to add this book to your box.

By pressing "Add to box", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Quick take

An intricately-plotted thriller and a love letter to strong-willed women.

Why I love it

Tana French’s novels about the Dublin Murder Squad are among the most unique and beloved of contemporary crime fiction series. Rather than feature the same hero over and over again, in each book a new detective takes center stage. This allows the tone and perspective to change, even though the fast-pacing and intricate plotting remain consistent.

The Trespasser, the sixth novel in the series, comes with a fresh edge: not only is protagonist Antoinette Crowley a woman (the only one on Murder Squad), she’s a mixed race woman. Working on the Squad is Crowley’s dream and she’s damn good at it, but she has to be 'œfour times as good' (as the writer Roxane Gay would put it) as her white male co-workers. So while her colleagues waste their time pissing in her locker, stealing her witness reports or otherwise trying to intimidate her, she can’t afford to be shaken'”she must handle her cases with the utmost, jaw-clenching seriousness.

Antoinette’s case is a seemingly routine domestic murder that, as they tend to do in great thrillers, becomes way more complex than it originally seems. And the victim, or what we learn of her in life, is a fascinating, twisted woman in her own right. Antoinette puts on a brave face, but might be flawed narrator as well '“ is she being paranoid, or are her co-workers actually trying to impede her investigation? Come for the cool women and their complicated stories, stay for the hilarious descriptions of entitled men.

The timing for this novel could not be more apropos, as our country is poised elect our first female president. Now, I’ve never investigated a murder (or run for president!), but the micro and macro aggressions that plague Antoinette at work feel more than relevant to my own life. I’m a woman working in entertainment and on the internet. When I post a video to my YouTube channel, I can guarantee comments about my weight, my hair, my tone of voice, my anything '” I have to be as determined and single-minded as Antoinette to get my job done.

The Trespasser is a love letter to strong-willed women, and when I finished it I felt seen. Validated. Depicted. You should read it if you love intricately-plotted thrillers. You should read it if you love Tana French. And you should read it especially if you, like me, work in a sexist field and want to experience how thrilling it is when we not only succeed, but we take the fuck over.

Member ratings (2,506)

Mystery
One by One
We Solve Murders
The Return of Ellie Black
All the Colors of the Dark
The Paris Apartment
Arsenic and Adobo
Long Bright River
The Maid
The Turn of the Key
The Woman in Cabin 10
When the Stars Go Dark
The Broken Girls
Still Lives
The It Girl
Like a Sister
Death on the Nile
Mystery
View all
One by One
We Solve Murders
The Return of Ellie Black
All the Colors of the Dark
The Paris Apartment
Arsenic and Adobo
Long Bright River
The Maid
The Turn of the Key
The Woman in Cabin 10
When the Stars Go Dark
The Broken Girls
Still Lives
The It Girl
Like a Sister
Death on the Nile