The Likeness

The Likeness: A Novel by Tana French is a gorgeous book. It is beautifully written and guaranteed to give the reader goose flesh. It can easily be called a mystery but it is much more than that because in this author's hands it becomes a study of identity, being, and the core essence of who we truly are. I had just finished reading Faithful Place: A Novel when I started The Likeness and I don't think that Tana French's books need to be read in any particular order. However, I think it would be more fun had I read The Likeness first because I would have been more familiar with the character of Frank Mackey. The Likeness starts out with the stabbing and murder of a young graduate student who looks enough like Detective Cassie Maddox to be her twin. The dead girl's name is Lexie Madison and she was living with four other graduate students from Trinity College near Dublin. Frank Mackey is a detective in the murder division and is Cassie Maddox's boss. He decides, along with Cassie, that they will begin 'Project Mirror' and pretend that Lexie Madison is not dead, that she survived the stabbing and was merely in a coma. Cassie will go undercover as Lexie and live with the four other roommates until she can identify the killer. What makes this even more interesting is that the name 'Lexie Madison' is the name of one of Cassie Maddox's past aliases when she used to work undercover. I know, it sounds weird. Cassie used to be Lexie. Lexie is now dead and Cassie is playing the role of Lexie again. But that's how it is. It's a game of identity, undercover, out of the shadows and into the woods. It's about what is what and who is who - - really. While this is a mystery at its essence, it is more than what we usually consider a mystery. It is a mystery about the metaphors of life and identity. It is about killers and victims, cops and criminals, reality and fantasy. Who are we and are we really who and what we think we are? This all works because it is in the hands of a master author who loves words and uses them as smoothly as hand cream. She turns words over and over like leaves blowing in the wind. We see the seasons in her words because they are that changing, ephemeral and beautiful. They come alive and we are totally sucked in. This is a book for people who like to read and who appreciate a really good book. It is a book that I can't wait to pass on to my husband so that we can talk about it together. It is a book I won't forget, filled with characters who will live long in my mind.

I'm not a big mystery reader, but I enjoy Tana French's writing. It's more suspenseful and psychological than just plot-driven. However, I was so enthralled by the book that comes before this one, In the Woods, and was a little disappointed with this one as a follow up. However, let me just say up front that it was not boring and definitely held my attention throughout. That is a good thing. It obviously could be read separately from the other book. But I kept wanting to see something come of the relationship between Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, and it was just mentioned as an underlying reason that Cassie moved from the Murder Squad to Domestic Violence. She tries to call him once in a weak moment but then hangs up. So there was that feeling of unfinished business. (Maybe there is a third novel about these two?) Rob Ryan didn't even really have a part in this one. Then there is the story. It's hard to account for a lot of the decisions Cassie makes in this--they don't really always go along with her character. She does seem to have a self-destructive urge, so I guess that's part of why she takes some risks. And it is kind of interesting and believable that she gets a kind of Stockholm syndrome with the group she's infiltrated as an undercover agent. Her relationship with her boss on this case, Frank, is a little odd. He's a hardass, she's a hardass, and yet she lets him put her in some hairy situations and then doesn't always let him know when things are getting out of hand. But it makes for a good story. At any rate, this is a good mystery, with building suspense. The characters are three-dimensional. I just would have liked to see something of Rob Ryan in this again too.

Another Tana French novel I couldn’t stay away from. This one is about an undercover detective who gets emotionally involved in the case, which I always suspected, at least to some degree, that all detectives had to be emotionally involved with the victims as well as the suspects. In the story, the young detective Cassandra Murdoch (Cassie) is called to see a dead body, which is the exact likeness of herself. Cassie is having some kind of an occupational crisis and she has left the murder squad and is working in domestic violence, but she is a good undercover and her old boss together with her boyfriend Sam in the murder squad call her to ask her to the task, as the deceased has taken Cassie’s old undercover name Lexie Madison and has been living in a house with four other young college students. As the result of her old boss Frank Mackey’s machinations, although Sam is worried about Lexie’s safety, Cassie accepts the job and begins living with the others as Lexie who actually survived the attack, while she acts as if her memory is damaged and she doesn’t recall how the stabbing happened and who did it. To do this, Lexie is wired and has a gun. From outside, Frank listens in to what happens in the house. Then, each night Lexie/Cassie takes a walk in the dark to talk to Frank and/or Sam on her cellphone, since it used to be Lexie’s habit to take such walks alone because that was the only time she had some privacy for the reason that the group was so tight-knit that nobody could do anything alone without being discovered. As Cassie gets to know the four friends, however, she begins liking them and some kind of loyalty to them takes hold inside her. Who was Lexie in real life, who murdered her, and is the murderer one of the young people in the house? Add to this, the local town’s resentment of these young people, the plot takes many turns and twists. Many a renowned writer would envy this author for putting together all this so expertly and creating strong emotions as well, especially because this is a murder-mystery story involving an undercover detective. Yet the undercover detective is swayed with human thoughts and feelings and is not far from being impressed with what happens around her. As the narrator of the story, Cassie is a complex yet sympathetic and very believable protagonist. The suspense in the book is unimaginable as the reader together with Cassie gets to know the other four friends and hopes the murderer is not among them, but that he came from outside. This part of the puzzle together with the reason for the attack, however, the readers will have to find out on their own, and that is where the real story is. Although not a fan of the murder/mystery genre, this is the fourth book I have read by Tana French within a short time, although her books are relatively long. This one is probably the shortest with 419 pages, and I just can’t wait to read the rest of her work.

I have to admit that I began this book with very high expectations. After reading Into the Woods, French's first, I found the prose so meaningful and immersive that I simply assumed that she would find an editor or some kind of mentor who would help with her story construction and fine tune a few of her characters. Unfortunately, she fixes a few problems to find a few others. The first star French lost right off the bat: this book is pure fiction. That is, to say, that it requires a suspension of disbelief which we all possess, to some degree, and use when we experience fictional work. Luke Skywalker didn't really live in a galaxy far, far away. We choose to leave our ultra-rational, sensical sides behind when we start reading or watching, and choose not to ask certain questions when faced with simple inconsistencies: "If he lived in a galaxy far, far away, how did we find out about it?" French chooses a premise for her second work which stretches that beyond measure. A woman who closely resembles the supporting character from Into the Woods, Cassie Maddox, is murdered and Cassie chooses to be put undercover as the woman, spinning a tale for her friends that she simply went into a coma and lost a lot of her memories about the stabbing. This is, of course, ludicrous. French tries to supplicate you by showing Maddox multiple films of her likeness in her daily life and having Cassie work super-hard at memorizing minor facts about the victim's life. It doesn't work: at the end of Act I, I still resoundingly found the idea of someone stepping into another's life and hoping no one would notice unbelievable. If, and that's a big "if", you choose to suspend your disbelief a little longer than I could, there is a reasonably good book underneath, which is quite enjoyable. Again, French shows her tremendous prowess in flowing passages about Cassie's anxiety and longing for the relationship the victim, "Lexie", had with her four roommates. It's very good, just like the last book. Unfortunately, French loses the second star due to another simple story construction problem which plagued her previously: tipping her hand at the wrong time. We immediately receive information about Lexie that's conflicting and provokes intrigue, and French does a great job of tittering the reader along as Cassie uncovers clues. Unfortunately, French establishes the "why" of the crime near the midpoint of the book, and finishes the climax with the "how". Why someone didn't stop her and say, "Hey, you've got a great story here. Why not combine the 'why' and the 'how' into the climax together?" It's a huge letdown when we find out who the killer is, but realize that we had known for some time what happened, sans details. Overall, another quality addition by French, but I just can't help thinking that there must be something better in her arsenal. I finished the book as quickly as I could after realizing that there was nothing else to find. The character "Daniel" is quite fascinating and French again does a great job penetrating the mind of Cassie for the reader, and she obviously has a very deep command of Cassie's persona. I look forward to her next adventure, hoping that it will be French's third book that really floors me.

After reading Tana French’s latest novel (The Trespasser) I wanted to sample one of her earlier novels and find out more. I was not disappointed. The narrator is another woman detective, Cassie Maddox, who is currently working in Dublin’s DV (domestic violence) squad. When a woman (Alexandra “Lexie” Madison) bearing an almost identical appearance to Cassie turns up murdered, Detective Frank Mackey from the Murder Squad enlists Cassie to “pretend” she’s Lexie and return to the house where she lived as if nothing had happened. I wondered if this kind of plot device was credible. It’s a stretch but French makes it work. So . . . what could go wrong? In a word, plenty. Lexie had been living with four others, three men (Rafe, Justin and Daniel) and a woman named Abby, all of them students at Trinity College. Cassie’s job is to establish herself in the group and not give herself away, keep Frank informed by wearing a “wire” and making secret evening telephone calls, and find out who killed Lexie. She also has her own love interest in the form of Detective Sam O’Neill, another member of the Murder Squad, who worries constantly about her safety. Is Cassie able to fool the others? She worries about this and there are enough incidents for the reader to be seriously concerned as well. She rationalizes the risk by telling herself that Frank can pull her out of any dangerous situation in a manner of minutes. A more interesting problem is Cassie’s attitude toward her job and the folks she’s living with; she’s enjoying her new life style and is comfortable with both the house and the “give and take” encounters with the other residents. Can she still be objective and get her “cop job” done? About 3/4 of the way I wondered if French had “written herself into a corner.” Not a problem. There are plenty of surprises to keep you reading until the end.

There will be no spoilers in this review. As in her first novel, In the Woods, Tana French has created another sensuous, lyrical, haunting, suspenseful story. Although it is considered a mystery, it is much much more than that. It is a story of identity in all its literal and metaphorical forms. It is a social commentary (but never sententious) and it is also about fear and flight and love. Cassie Maddox and Sam O'Neill are detectives from In the Woods. Although Operation Vestal (from In the Woods) is mentioned several times, these books can be read in any sequence without ruining it for the reader. The setting is again Dublin, Ireland. Cassie is the star attraction of this story as she goes undercover to live with four liberal arts doctoral candidates whose housemate, Lexie Madison, is found dead from a stabbing in an abandoned cottage. Lexie Madison looks exactly like Cassie, and the name is her last undercover alias, which adds to the mystery. The housemates will be told that she survived the stabbing. It isn't necessary to give too many plot details. What is more important is the response from reading. This is a generous, gorgeous, thoughtful, poetic story. The tone is almost elegiac at times, especially during her descriptive paragraphs, and the author's use of the extended metaphor is prolific and often profound. At the end of the novel, I looked up hawthorn (the tree, flower, bush) on Wikipedia and had a chill run up and down my spine. Her descriptions, turns of phrase, elegant passages and graceful unfolding keep me fastened and fascinated. What I love about Tana French is that her novels are both character-driven AND plot-driven. She does not sacrifice one for the other. With most mysteries, I only read them once. But The Likeness can be read again just for the aesthetics. Also, there is no deus ex machina here. The story is excellently paced with a well-timed delivery of its climax. Tana French is no lightweight, but she makes the story accessible to anyone who enjoys reading. She has that gift to appeal to a variety of readers-- even readers who look for largely escape mysteries. But this is not escape reading; it is the kind of reading that makes you ponder. It is philosophical and it echoes. It has shadows, swirls, hollows, heart,humanity, tension, suspense, whispers, hawthorn, hawthorn, hawthorn... I look forward to the third book that Tana French is working on, with Frank Mackey (from The Likeness) as the main protagonist.

Technically a murder mystery, this book is far more a finely textured portrait of Cassie Maddox, the gutsy, resilient, and resourceful Dublin detective of IN THE WOODS, who steps into a tight-knit household of grad students - living in a rural, large, old house - to unravel the mysterious death of one of them, Lexie Madison. The psychological strength of Cassie and her adaptability and imaginative strategizing when she assumes the identity of Lexie, an amazing look-a-like, and rejoins the group upon the authorities claiming that Lexie has actually survived the stabbing, are extraordinary, all the while producing a never-ending, breathtaking tension on the possibility of being found out. Because Cassie must fit seamlessly into the group, all of her efforts in actually solving the case must be well hidden, using well-concealed mikes and making phone calls during walks in the dark, threatening woods surrounding the house, not far from the small, deteriorating cabin where Lexie was found. The group, except for Lexie - a latecomer, had met many years before as college freshmen, recognizing each other as kindred souls. Daniel's inheritance of the old house made it possible for him to construct the isolated, exclusionary, and idyllic world for which he longed. Of course, perfect harmony among people is fantasy. Clearly the disappearance/reappearance of Lexie has shaken them, and brings to the surface submerged fault lines, alliances, and flaws, to which Cassie must be attuned. She also must be alert to every subtle clue about Lexie's relationship with the group. For example, was she romantically entangled with any of them or for that matter what were her preferences and tendencies in regard to food, clothing, speech patterns, etc. Worst of all is the very real possibility that one of the group stabbed Lexie and that some or all of them know that. The dialectic among the aspects of the story as they are developed and revealed - that is, the strain of literally becoming someone else, the various group dynamics, and the investigation by not only Cassie but a wholesale effort in the background - makes this story an exciting psychological drama. The complications mount as it is uncovered that Lexie had a troubled past, not to mention the rural community's literal hatred of this outsider band of brothers and sisters. The author's prescient handling of the thinking of the characters as well as her gift for dialog brings this story to life. At times the pace slows to a crawl, but the general edginess keeps the attention. Just the assumption that someone could assume an identity among friends is quite intriguing and is handled by the author in an amazingly plausible fashion. There are several threads of connection to IN THE WOODS, but none are essential for this story. However, Cassie's former connection to Detective Rob Ryan still haunts her.

The Likeness is Tana French’s second book in the Dublin Murder Squad series. Working in the Undercover Unit years before, Cassie established the fake identity of Lexie Madison. She worked under the supervision of Detective Frank Mackey (I really like Mackey) and stayed in the undercover position until she was stabbed. She recovered and moved to the Murder Squad (Book 1 – Into the Woods) retiring the identity of Lexie Madison. Fast forward years later……Cassie gets a call from her old boss Frank Mackey asking her to come to a field and make sure she isn’t seen. He won’t tell her what it’s about. Once she arrives she’s hustled into the abandoned famine cottage where Mackey and O’Neill show her the body of a young woman. The woman is the spitting image of Cassie and lo and behold, her identity is Lexie Madison. Frank sees a great chance to have Cassie assume that identity again and use her as bait to get the murderer. But first of all – Frank has to convince Cassie to go undercover again. She isn’t champing at the bit to do this but eventually she acquiesces. Frank plans to tell the man who discovered the body that he actually saved the young woman’s life, that she was in a coma and only appeared dead. They plan to tell her five housemates the same thing and not allow them to visit while she’s in a coma. This gives Frank and Cassie a chance to study up on the deceased woman so Cassie can seamlessly slip into her life. Frank has gathered the housemates phones and there are videos of the six interacting with one another. They can watch “Lexie” laugh, how she walks, the cadence of her speech and see if she is affectionate or standoffish with any of the room mates. You are left to wonder who the murdered young woman was and how she came about getting the false identity of Lexie Madison. Will Cassie fit in with the tight little group of roommates? Will the murderer find her before she figures out who he or she is? So far I have read three of her books and this was my least favorite. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a good story, it just wasn’t my fav of the three. What I like is how French introduces us to Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox in the first book and then focuses on Cassie, Sam and Cassie’s old boss from her undercover job, Frank Mackey, in this book. Book three then focuses on getting to know Frank Mackey (this was my favorite). I love the police procedural writings of Tana French and look forward to all of the books upcoming. Since Steak Diane was served to “Lexie” on her first night back, I knew I had to make it. It wasn’t complicated but it has some rich ingredients so….it won’t be on the regular rotation. It was tasty and I am glad I finally tried it. Full recipe is at Squirrel Head Manor. www.tinaculbertson.blogspot.com www.novelmeals.wordpress.com

I've been working my way pretty compulsively through Tana French, Irish literary crime fiction writer's books, since coming to her fourth book Broken Harbour, on the strength of two book reviewers blogs. Having just finished The Likeness, her second book, I'm reeling, punch drunk, from the emotional journey of this, which for sure must take part of its inspiration from Donna Tartt's first explosive novel, The Secret History, but is nonetheless in no way derivative, and is all imbued with French's own intelligence, style, and intricate character and plotting. Cassie Maddox, the central detective of her gripping first novel, In The Woods, is still feeling the after-shocks of the crime she investigated. No longer in the Murder Squad, she has relocated to the quieter shores of the Domestic Violence Unit, and has begun a relationship with one of the detectives from the murder squad. The Likeness does read as a stand-alone, for anyone who has not read In The Woods, and anything which the reader needs to know as background does get dripped into the story of this, as Cassie herself continues to come to terms with the events of In The Woods. We learn something about her professional back-story, too - unfortunately, this is a major spoiler which I think the publishers chose to reveal, and it represents my major criticism of this book (not French's fault) Cassie worked for a time a few years ago in Undercover Ops, infiltrating a drug ring. Her invented identity was that of a woman called Alexandra (Lexie) Madison. And then a body is found, in a derelict cottage, clearly a very recent murder victim. The wallet on the body shows the victim is called Lexie Madison. Running the identity through the police computer brings in the big gun of Undercover ops, Frank Mackey, who ran Cassie as Lexie. The shock is that this Lexie Madison is a double for the very much alive Cassie Maddox. The dead Lexie was part of an elite group of 5 post-graduate students, close friends, living in a beautiful, decaying mansion, Whitethorn House, on the outskirts of Glenskehy, a small backwater in the Wicklow Mountains. Inevitably police interest centres initially on the others in the group, but their stories all stack up, and the group are united in their grief that one of theirs is dead. And there are other suspects, which link in to Ireland's deep history going back through generations, and the tensions arising out of class and nationality - the working class and the peasantry of old Ireland, and the wealthy Anglo Irish landowners. Irish history is firmly woven into all French's novels. So, an audacious plan is set in place (and I'm afraid it is the spoiler of the blurb itself) Cassie could go undercover again as Lexie. The pathology report shows that the woman in the derelict cottage died from a single stab wound which did not happen in the cottage itself, the woman had run from someone to the cottage, and bled to death there. Had she been discovered earlier, she might have survived. The group (including the dead Lexie) were very much the golden, charismatic, bound together elite (and odd, skeletons in their backgrounds) of The Secret History. French adds something else into this however - there is very much a sense of the yearning, soulmate romance of deep friendship, above and beyond sexuality, the kind of friendship that arises in youth, and at the time seems as if it could last a lifetime. Even whilst within that place there is a kind of looking back to it, a `Lost Domaine/Grand Meaulnes' quality. Cassie herself and Cassie taking on this second `Lexie Madison' identity, and the 4 others is someone who longs for the powerful sense of belonging, of friendships as a more powerful bond than bloodkin, and a more powerful bond than the one-to-one of sexual partnership. "In the sitting room the piano is open, wood glowing chestnut and almost too bright to look at in the bars of sun, the breeze stirring the yellowed sheet music like a finger. The table is laid ready for us, five settings - the bone-china plates and the long-stemmed wineglasses, fresh-cut honeysuckles trailing from a crystal bowl - but the silverware has gone dim with tarnish and the heavy damask napkins are frilled with dust......Somewhere in the house, faint as a fingernail-flick at the edge of my hearing, there are sounds: a scuffle, whispers. It almost stops my heart. The others aren't gone, I got it all wrong, somehow. They're only hiding; they're still here, for ever and ever" And that quote is as powerful a paean to memory, and the sense of our pasts almost within reach, as any I've read This is indeed a long book (she shares that too, with Tartt!) - at nearly 700 pages, but the unravelling of the story, the careful and believable psychology of all the major characters, the tangles and twists of all the relationships, and, for Cassie herself, the weirdness of being herself-and-not-herself, the whole question of identity, arising when anyone is leading any kind of double life, is superlative. And there is also the fascination of the police procedural itself, and how individual police can marry their work functions, with who each of them is, individually. Most of all - it is the wonderful, seductive quality of French's writing, and a first person narrator who grabs the reader and makes them as desperate to want the golden lads and lasses to be real, and unsullied as Cassie would like, because of her own yearning for lifelong soulmates, whilst at the same time, making us as needy of her fierce professional desire to solve that crime as she is. She (and we) know that there are two drives going on here, which may not be compatible

Difficile de trouver un défaut à ce livre... Allez si, peut-être: pas de temps mort. Par moment, j'aurais aimé que l'auteur prenne un peu plus son temps et développe certaines idées. Mais après tout, c'est un polar, l'absence de respiration fait partie du genre!

God, oh god. There are just so many things I could write about this book, beside the fact that I loved every single page of it. First of all, the plot was brilliant. A cop finding her ex-under cover character living her own life, until she was found dead? And she was living with a group of beautiful, intelligent, complicated, and somehow suspicious friends under 1 roof? Who could have said no to that kind of story? It's quite rare to find a book which you can say wholeheartedly that you loved every single part of and would like to kiss the author all over her face. The book gave me an emotional roller coaster along with the main and sub-main characters and I enjoyed the ride so much, I'm actually glad and mad at the same time that I finished reading it. Can not wait to read the next book in the series. I love you Tana French, thank you for being such a genius.

Love this series of books from the Dublin Murder series. This one was a well written crime story peppered with just the right amount of "supernatural" intrigue. Highly recommend.

come i precedenti, anche questo giallo della French è ambientato in un'Irlanda sospesa tra passato e futuro: i cambiamenti - e non in meglio - sono tangibili anche nella psicologia dei personaggi. La protagonista, che già avevamo incontrato in "nel bosco", si trova - letteralmente- a fronteggiare la propria morte. the likeness allude infatti alla rassomiglianza tra lei e una giovane donna, trovata senza vita in un cottage della campagna irlandese. La detective è obbligata dalle circostanze a riprendere il proprio ruolo di infiltrata, trovandosi di fronte a un dilemma che mette a repentaglio la propria scelta esistenziale, i propri affetti, il proprio medesimo ruolo di tutrice della legge. Un romanzo che lascia il fiato in sospeso e suscita molteplici interrogativi sull'essenza della vita, sul ruolo che ognuno si sceglie, sull'importanza della famiglia, degli affetti, dell'amore.