Skip to main content

The Likeness by Tana French

This much is mine, though: everything I did. Frank puts it all down to the others ... while as far as I can tell Sam thinks that, in some obscure and slightly bizarro way, it was Lexie's fault. When I say it wasn't like that, they give me careful sideways looks and change the subject ... But give me more credit than that. Someone else may have dealt the hand, but I picked it up off the table, I played every card, and I had my reasons.
from page 3

The Likeness is Tana French's follow up to her novel In The Woods. The previous novel focused on Rob Ryan as narrator; the follow up is narrated by Ryan's former partner Cassie Maddox and the action commences in the months following the conclusion of the events portrayed in In The Woods. A little tidbit for French fans: her next novel will have for its narrator Frank Mackey, Maddox's old undercover boss who was introduced to us in The Likeness. And while I anxiously awaited her second novel, I'm not sure about the third; Mackey was a character I detested.

In this new novel one of Maddox's aliases from her stint in undercover comes back to haunt her when the body of a woman who could be her twin is found murdered. The woman has slipped seamlessly and effortlessly into the identity of Lexie Madison; it's an alias Maddox used years ago in an undercover operation that ended badly. Maddox's boyfriend, who remains on the Murder Squad, Sam O'Neil has caught the case. Reluctantly he allows Maddox's former undercover boss, Frank Mackey, to engineer a crazy scheme in which Maddox re-assumes her old undercover identity and infiltrates the house that the woman they know only as Lexie shared with four other graduate students to ferret out more clues to the woman's true identity and that of her murderer. All three detectives soon realize that while the four roommates all have their own secrets to hide, Lexie may have had the most to hide.

French infuses a sense of foreboding from the very beginning of her book that can only foreshadow how very badly both the undercover operation and the book will end not just for the roommates, but for the detectives as well. French does this like no other author and this bleak sense of foreboding runs throughout every beautifully, exquisitely suspenseful chapter as she allows the reader to eavesdrop on the intimate thoughts of the narrator as each clue and detail is slowly revealed. And while the ending is sad for some characters, it is hopeful for others and in that way it differs from how In The Woods ended. Ultimately the overarching theme is how life events can destroy our relationships and lives if we allow them to spin wildly out of control, allowing them to beat us down and disillusion us. And while it seems that in the end some characters are broken by the shattering resolution of the mystery, others pull themselves up and are determined to survive it.

I highly recommend this book. This book is available in adult fiction at the Matthews Public Library and upon request from Annville Free Library and Lebanon Community Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie
Labels:

Comments

Jeff Fister said…
I've just read all three of Tana French's novels in the space of a month or so (dreadful midwestern winter) and this one was my favorite. Although her most recent — Faithful Place — is probably the best written, this one best probed the protagonist's mind, in this case detective Cassie Maddox. In the first book, In The Woods, Rob Ryan came off as such a selfish jerk that ultimately I couldn't relate to him or rationalize some of his decisions. In Faithful Place, Frank Mackey was well drawn, but too idealized... way too Irish romantic with a ton of flaws, never fatal, and ultimately too, well, dashing. But Cassie Maddox from The Likeness rings the most true. Even though there's a suspension of disbelief in this book bigger than the Golden Gate bridge,you can't help but go along for the ride, never knowing what the witty, impulsive, obsessed Cassie will say or do. And that's probably because Cassie is probably most like the author — but I'm only guessing.
February 2, 2011 at 5:45 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In The Woods by Tana French

"What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with the truth is fundamental, but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies ... and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely ... This is my job ... What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this--two things: I crave truth. And I lie." opening lines of In The Woods chapter 1, pages 3-4 In The Woods by Tana French, an Irish writer, is an extremely well-written and well-crafted mystery novel. The downside is that this is French's debut novel, and her website (located at http://www.tanafrench.com/ ) does not off
24 comments
Read more

Broken by Karin Slaughter

Before I begin the formal review there are a few things I need to get off my chest in the wake of finishing this book; I'll do so without giving away too many (or any) spoilers. The OUTRAGE!: the identity of Detective Lena Adams' new beau; the low depths to which Grant County's interim chief has sunk and brought the police force down with him; agent Will Trent's wife, Angie's, sixth sense/nasty habit of reappearing in his life just when he's slipping away from her. Thank God for small miracles though because while Angie was certainly referred to during the book, the broad didn't make an appearance. One sign that I've become way too invested in these characters is that I'd like to employ John Connolly's odd pair of assassins, Louis and Angel, to contract out a hit on Angie; do you think Karin Slaughter and John Connolly could work out a special cross over? Hallelujah: Dr. Sara Linton and agent Will Trent are both back. There is no hallelujah fo
3 comments
Read more

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is the first book by this author that I've read.  I'm not sure how I first came across it, but it's been on my books-to-read list for a while.  Recently my library acquired a copy, and since I was between books, I thought, hmm, let me try this one and see if it sticks.  Sometimes when I'm between books I have a problem starting and actually sticking with a book to the end. The historical part of the story of Orphan Train is actually inspired by true events.  There really was a train in the 1920's that took orphaned children from the Children's Aid Society in New York City out to the Midwest in a quest to find families to place them in.  Some of these children are still alive today.  However, I don't think that the characters of Molly and Vivian are based on any real life people. Molly Ayer has spent the last nine years bouncing among over a dozen different foster homes.  She's developed a tough shell and a ha
2 comments
Read more