Dublin Murders

Didn't go to bed till 1:30 last night because I binge-watched the last four or five episodes of this eight-episode series. Really wanted to find out how it ended because I hated the ending of In the Woods. The series did a better job of the ending — adequate not awesome. I was really hoping it was Dreamcatcher, where that movie's ending was a million miles better than Stephen King's.

I'm glad I bought and watched Dublin Murders. Sarah Greene as Cassie Maddox was really good, but I thought Killian Scott as Rob Reilly was miscast (I pictured him differently in In the Woods). However, Conleth Hill as Superintendent O'Kelly was amazing! Just noticed today he was Varys in Game of Thrones.

I never read The Likeness. I imagine it was faithful to the novel where Cassie never finds out who Lexie was, since Cassie dumps her ashes to sea . . . the box says "Jane Doe". Tonya French must specialize in lazy writing. First, in In the Woods, she never explains what happened to Rob's two friends, and in The Likeness, she never explains where's Cassie's doppelgänger came from.

Some observations, while they're fresh in my head:

• Rob sleeps with his roommate in Dublin Murders, but in In the Woods it happened in the past.
• Rob's mother is alive in the series, but in the book I don't remember her being around when he's a detective.
• Interesting that in the series, Rob's mom says his two missing friends never liked him. I don't think that was in the book.

My Amazon review:

Customer Review

Johnny Ostentatious

4.0 out of 5 stars an-mhaith

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2022

Very good ("an-mhaith" in Irish, according to Google Translate). I purchased this series from Amazon Prime because I thought one of the books DUBLIN MURDERS is based on, IN THE WOODS, was excellent except for the ending. I was hoping the series would be like DREAMCATCHER, where that movie's ending was a vast improvement over Stephen King's. DUBLIN MURDERS had a better ending than IN THE WOODS (DUBLIN MURDERS' ending was adequate not awesome). Oh, and the acting was top-notch, especially Sarah Greene as Cassie Maddox, Conleth Hill as Superintendent O'Kelly, and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Frank Mackey.