The Likeness: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Tana French (Author)
Key Phrases: mike feed, Whitethorn House, Lexie Madison, Uncle Simon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
*Starred Review* French’s debut novel, In the Woods (2007), introduced Dublin Murder Squad detective Cassie Maddox and earned unanimous critical praise. Cassie is back, and French has written another winner. The body of a young woman is found in the ruins of a old stone cottage in a dying village outside of Dublin, and the dead woman and Cassie are virtual twins. Lacking suspects or leads, the victim is reported by the police to be injured but alive, leaving Cassie to step into the dead woman’s life as a Trinity College graduate student and the housemate of four other students. Despite the tensions of being undercover, Cassie quickly learns to love her quirky, insular housemates and her new life in a once-grand house, even as the Murder Squad investigation yields little. Someone stabbed her doppelganger to death, and Cassie must find the killer. The Likeness has everything: memorable characters, crisp dialogue, shrewd psychological insight, mounting tension, a palpable sense of place, and wonderfully evocative, painterly prose. In the Woods was an Edgar Award finalist; this one just might go one step further. --Thomas Gaughan

Review
“ [Tana French] aces her second novel. The Likeness [is a] nearly pitch- perfect follow-up to her 2007 debut thriller, In the Woods.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“ The Likeness [is] a book even better than the first, which was very good indeed. . . . The suspense is gut-grinding . . . A wonderful book.”
—New York Daily News

“ For The Likeness, [French] has brought back detective Cassie Maddox and fashioned a plot that harks back to both Donna Tartt and Wilkie Collins.”
—The Washington Post

“ [French’s] already signature blend of psychological insight, beautiful writing and wry humor is on display once more in The Likeness.”
—The Baltimore Sun --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition, 1st Printing edition (July 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670018864
• ISBN-13: 978-0670018864
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,393 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The hawthorn as extended metaphor, July 22, 2008

By	switterbug "laughingwild" (Austin, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

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.

Casie 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 Maddox, is found dead from a stabbing in an abandoned cottage. Lexie Maddox 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.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another Edgar to come for Tana French?, July 18, 2008

By	threefab (Vermont USA) - See all my reviews

The extraordinary follow-up to Tana French's Edgar-winning "In the Woods," "The Likeness" beautifully combines the narrative and the lyrical, interspersing moments of transcendent illumination with leisurely confident story-telling that doesn't let you go for a moment. The language is wonderful, the characterizations are complex and believable, and the suspense builds to a climax that surely will soon be incorporated into "a major motion picture." French credits her readers with intelligence and taste, letting this book be read on many levels, from dramatic mystery to speculation on subjects like the guts and work that being loved take; the thought that in life you take what you want and then pay for it (though you don't know in advance what the price will be); the changing nature of social subversion (which used to be expressed through discontent and now takes the form of contentment); what happens to people and societies when group memory is lost. A wonderful mystery, but not just a mystery. Highly recommended.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cassie Maddox meets her doppleganger, July 17, 2008

By	Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The premise of The Likeness--Detective Cassie Maddox (heroine of French's memorable debut novel, the Edgar-winning In the Woods) assumes the identity of a lookalike murder victim who herself assumed an undercover identity Maddox abandoned years before--certainly sounds absurd on the surface, but the author makes it work, and makes it work well. Once Cassie's (and through her, the reader's) logical objections to the scheme are overcome, French proceeds to deliver a masterwork of suspense, dropping her heroine into a dangerous, emotionally charged situation, where she is constantly aware that any or all of the people she's trying to deceive may wish her dead. The fact that the novel is written in the first person makes it all the more intense.