The Likeness: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143115626
• ISBN-13: 978-0143115625
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (118 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,914 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

132 of 138 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 (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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This review is from: The Likeness: A Novel (Hardcover)

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.

31 of 33 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

This review is from: The Likeness: A Novel (Hardcover)

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.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous writing, flimsy plot, December 2, 2008

By	e. verrillo (williamsburg, ma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Likeness: A Novel (Hardcover)

Likeness is one of those off-kilter books that you love to read because the prose is stunning, but which fails completely as a novel. In order for French's plot to work you have to believe: 1)that an undercover cop could pass herself off as another person to a group of people who knew her "double" intimately, 2)that a person can go from being a hat designer to a PhD student in one year (transcripts? application process? recommendations?),3) that grad school students act like 15-year-olds (well, OK maybe that's not so far off the mark),4) that a trained undercover cop would keep important evidence (the diary) from her superiors, etc. etc. etc. I simply did not buy any of it. There were problems with the writing as well. I found the trendy post-modern "quotes" (Star Trek, Alice's Restaurant) disruptive. And those endless ambiguous, interrupted conversations hinting at dark secrets got old after a while. I wanted some resolution. Even the relationships between the characters were unconvincing. Was Cassie actually supposed to be in love with Sam? Why did Cassie want to be Lexi? Why did the villagers care so deeply about a woman who had died almost a hundred years earlier? In short, the premise was implausible, the book was over-written, and the psychology shaky.
French is a fabulous writer. I'm hoping that her third novel will be a charm.