The Likeness is Irish author Tana French’s follow-up to her
debut bestseller, In the Woods. While I actually think this is a better novel,
it still seems a bit overlong and slow.
It’s been six months since the events of the previous book
and Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to recover and to put her life
right. She has moved out of Murder Squad into the Domestic Violence, and is hoping
that this switch will make her life quieter and make her burgeoning relationship
with Detective Sam O'Neill go a bit smoother –even if she can’t fully make a
commitment to him or her new career.
But in the end, it’s Sam who gets her back involved in a
murder case, one involving the stabbing death of a female college student. And
while she’s puzzled at first why Sam called her, it becomes clear to Cassie when
she sees the girl, her past is about to return in a most unwelcome sort of way.
The young dead women’s name is Lexie Madison, which turns out to be a name
Cassie used when she was an undercover cop years before joining the Murder
Squad. Plus she also bears a striking resemblance to Maddox.
With no leads, no suspects, and no clue to Lexie's real
identity, Cassie's old undercover boss, Frank Mackey, spots the opportunity of
a lifetime. They can say that the stab wound wasn't fatal and send Cassie
undercover in her place to find out information that the police never would and
to tempt the killer out of hiding. At first Cassie thinks the idea is crazy,
but she is seduced by the prospect of working on a murder investigation again
and by the idea of assuming the victim's identity as a graduate student with a
cozy group of friends.
As she is drawn into Lexie's world, Cassie realizes that the
girl's secrets run deeper than anyone imagined. Her friends are becoming
suspicious, Sam has discovered a generations-old feud involving the old house
the students live in, and Frank is starting to suspect that Cassie's growing
emotional involvement could put the whole investigation at risk.
The first part of the book, and arguably the slowest chunk,
details Cassie preparing to go undercover at Whitethorn House, a manor outside
Dublin and close to town called Glenskehy (and in most procedural shows these
days would be quickly taken care of in a montage scene). The folks who live
around the manor and the town don’t like the five people who’ve taken up
residence there: paternal Daniel (who inherited
the house from his uncle, who equally was not liked by the folks), handsome Rafe,
the oddball Abby, and easily rattled Justin.
While the books plays out like an elongated episode of the
Sarah Michelle Geller series The Ringer married with today’s TV procedural with
a dash of Agatha Christie (every one of the four have stereotypical quirks and
dark past, they’re also generally unlikeable as well, which is a Christie cliché)
added for good measure, it’s dull pace undermines the plot –which while
hyper-realistic, still stretches the credibility factor. While French appears
to focus more on character development over plot manipulation (there is
certainly no surprises here), it could’ve been more successful if The Likeness
was a tighter ship –mostly the first hundred pages could’ve been trimmed to a
few chapters.
Still, her prose is strong and you end up liking Cassie more
than In the Woods. Her dialogue is strong, and very realistic (I like
characters who act like everyday folks instead speaking and doing things like
they are characters in a book) and that really saves this book.
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