The Likeness
A Novel
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4.3 • 1.3K Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
New York Times bestselling author Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Hunter, is “the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years” (The Washington Post) and “inspires cultic devotion in readers” (The New Yorker).
“Required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting.” —The New York Times
In the “compellingˮ (The Boston Globe) and “pitch perfectˮ (Entertainment Weekly) follow-up to Tana French’s runaway bestseller In the Woods, Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad—until an urgent telephone call brings her back to an eerie crime scene.
The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used as an undercover cop. Suddenly, Cassie is back undercover, to find out not only who killed this young woman, but, more importantly, who she was.
The Likeness is a supremely suspenseful story exploring the nature of identity and belonging.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The second novel in Tana French’s loosely connected Dublin Murder Squad series shows off everything that makes her one of today’s most exciting crime writers. The haunting novel revolves around a murdered university student named Lexie Madison who bears an uncanny resemblance to Detective Cassie Maddox. Even freakier, “Lexie Madison” is Maddox’s undercover alias. When Cassie goes undercover on campus, she doesn’t know whether Lexie’s fellow students are friends or foes—or whether her mysterious new sense of belonging will trap or save her. French is a master at juggling genres: The Likeness works as a straight-ahead police procedural, but there are threads of supernatural eeriness running throughout the story. We felt unsettled the whole time we were reading this amazing book, so much so that we turned on every light in the house.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar-winner French blurs the boundaries between victim and cop, memory and fantasy, in this stunning sequel to her debut, In the Woods. Det. Cassie Maddox, a dead ringer for Lexie Madison, whose body has been found on the outskirts of the Irish village of Glenskehy, agrees to masquerade as Lexie in a police effort to identify her murderer. Cassie journeys to Whitethorn House, the rambling mansion Lexie shared with four fellow Ph.D. students and tells the friends that she survived the attack. As she probes deeper into the close-knit group, Cassie finds herself becoming emotionally attached to the stoic Daniel, sensitive Justin, gadabout Rafe and dependable Abby. But as tensions rise in the house and in Glenskehy, Cassie must decide if the biggest threat comes from without or lurks within. French cleverly subverts the conventions of the locked room mystery, ratcheting up the tension at every turn with her multidimensional characters. Readers looking for a new name in psychological suspense need look no further than this powerful new Irish voice.
Customer Reviews
The author CLEARLY based her characters on the characters in “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt
As the title notes, the structure of the student “family” is a clear riff on the earlier work by Pulitzer Prize winner, Donna Tartt. That said, it’s rather a nice homage to the original concept, although the plot gets muddled in places.
Just... don't.
It has the consistency of a short story that had been watered down to a novel. Three out of every five sentences should have been striked. This made the reading excruciating. Writing aside, the plot is absurd. I finished it out of a stubborn desire to find out how it ends. Don't do yourself the disservice of starting.
Painfully slow
Nowhere near as author's first book. Plot and character development took forever, and much longer than necessary. By the time it started to move, I couldn't wait for the book to end. Also told in first person narrative, which was clever. Nevertheless, very simplistic plot.