The Likeness by Tana French

Tana French's The Likeness is an absolutely cracking summer read.  I think it would wear well for the rest of the seasons, too, but any book that can keep my mind off the heat and humidity and inside the pages of a novel is going to receive my admiration and appreciation.  And I didn't mind that the story revolves around the phenomenon of doppelgängers either.  I've had a long fascination with the idea of there being someone somewhere in the world whose face is the twin of another.  Do you think it's true?  It's certainly been the topic of many books (Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar, Mary Stewart's The Ivy Tree and more recently Petra Hammesfahr's The Lie to name a few).  Tana French's novel adds a new spin to an old story, however, as this isn't a case simply of one person taking on the persona of another for financial or other gain. This time there's murder involved, and a murder that isn't being covered up but one that's being investigated by a detective.  An undercover detective no less.

When I read French's first novel, In the Woods, it was a near perfect reading experience for me.  I wondered if she could possibly improve on a book that won multiple awards.  She certainly met (maybe even topped) my expectations this time around.  Some writers just have a knack for pulling you into a story and not letting you go until the final page and then leaving you a little bereft when you've finished.  Tana French has that knack.  The Likeness has a slowish start, but I was always interested in the characters, and somewhere along the way the world around me fell away and I was there, in Whitethorn House with Cassie Maddox.

Tana French is a little unconventional in how she writes her mysteries, though her books are much more than simple whodunits.  In the Woods involved two detectives, Rob Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox, working on a murder case that nearly took over their lives and ruined an almost perfect friendship.  Rather than picking up the story where she left off, French takes one of the characters in the novel and spins a new story about her.  In this case, the character of Cassie Maddox takes center stage.  After 'Operation Vestal' nearly wrecked her, Cassie moved from the Murder Squad to Domestic Violence where life would be 'calmer'.  A nice nine to five job in proper business clothes, but no nightmares.    

I'm not entirely correct in saying this is Cassie's story.  Cassie is quick to point out that this is Lexie Madison's story.  And it's best to be clear that Lexie Madison never actually existed.  She was an assumed identity made up by Cassie and Frank Mackey for an undercover job at the University College of Dublin where she infiltrated a drug ring.  After the operation ended Lexie was more or less put to rest and forgotten.  Years later a body turns up in a ruined Famine cottage out in the middle of a field with an ID of Lexie Madison and the face of Cassie Maddox.  Frank Mackey, Cassie's former boss, can be alternately acerbic in his comments or a sweet talker depending on what he wants and how best he can achieve his ends.  It doesn't take too much cajoling to talk Cassie into resuming her undercover role as Lexie Madison and pick up Lexie's life as if (almost nothing) had happened in order to work out who was most likely to have murdered her.  Lexie has no known family and her friends were told she was in a coma due to serious wounds she received during a stabbing.

Lexie had been living with four other postgrad students; Daniel, Abby, Justin and Rafe, in an old Georgian manor house that has seen better days.  Although once the seat of an aristocratic family it's now mostly just run down, but to the five who live there it's a sort of sanctuary from an inhospitable world.  The group is a curious  and eccentric mix, each with some dark secret in their past they are unwilling to talk about, yet they form a close, if unlikely, family.  Nearly always in each other's company, Cassie/Lexie will return to their midst with a wire planted under her shirt.  It's an audacious and dangerous plan to find a murderer, and Mackey's criticized for going through with it just because he can.  Really there's more than one mystery here--discovering who this woman who called herself Lexie Madison was and just what or who she was running from and ultimately who murdered her.  

The four friends have a symbiotic relationship with each other.  They're the sort of friends who finish each other's sentences and know what the other is thinking.  And it's all to the exclusion of everyone else in the English Department at Trinity.  They are each other's family.  As weird as the detectives think it is (and maybe the other students and the residents of the little village where they live as well), there is something comforting in the situation as well, and the lines between reality, Cassie's reality, and the investigation become blurred. The four initially tiptoe around Lexie, but she is quickly accepted back into the fold, and Cassie falls into the rhythms of the household, perhaps to her own detriment.  French is talented when it comes to offering psychological insight into the whys and wherefores of the characters' behavior. 

I thoroughly enjoyed The Likeness.  There is a catch, however.  (There's always a catch isn't there?).  This is a novel best read with the knowledge going into it that it might require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief.  I'm entirely willing to give an author leeway, if she's a good storyteller.  And Tana French is a good storyteller.  She's not only good at story, but her prose is smooth and elegant and her characters are fully formed, too.  But what are the chances that Cassie Maddox might come across not only someone who looks so much like herself that they could pass as twins, that she would have taken on a persona that Cassie had once used, and that Cassie could walk amongst her most intimate friends and convince them she was Lexie.  This is the beauty of fiction, though.  Who knows, maybe it could happen.  I'm willing to give Tana French the benefit of the doubt.

Tana French's newest novel, Faithul Place is already on my nightstand and I'm already caught up in Frank Mackey's story now.  I'll let you know how things turn out.  

Comments

[Matt]

In the Woods is on my night-stand, and now I'm reading all the raving reviews of The Likeness. How can I pass a book that is perfect experience for many of you? :)

[Marg]

I really liked The Likeness more than I liked In the Woods. I love how Rob (and the events from the previous books) was a character in The Likeness without ever actually appearing in the story.

I just got the notice to say that Faithful Place is at my library waiting to be picked up so I can't wait to get a start on that!

[Danielle]

Matt--Tana French is really good at telling a suspenseful story and she is also a good writer. I hope you'll like her when you finally get a chance to read her book. She really does have all the right elements in all the right places.
Marg--I think I liked it a bit more than the first one, too, and I loved the first one if that gives you an idea of how much I liked it. It's interesting how she connects the stories, but it didn't seem to matter much if you hadn't read the first book. Enjoy the next one--I lucked out by being in the first batch of library check outs--but now I only have a week left to finish it--shouldn't be a problem I think!

[litlove]

Well I'm definitely reading this one, and very soon, too, I think! I have no trouble with suspension of disbelief in a good cause!

[Stefanie]

OMg Danielle! You make me want to drop everything, forget abot going to work, forget about homework, forget about all the other books I am reading or that are waiting to be read, and read this book right now!

[catharina]

I finished The Likening this morning, I had some fifty pages left and it was really getting late last night so I had my breakfast very late this morning as I couldnot wait reading those last pages first. What a terrific story.

[Janet]

Danielle: my experience with both The Likeness and Into the Woods was much like yours: what fabulous reads! I can understand some of the criticisms I've read of both (certain plot elements in Woods were a little frustrating and it was definitely necessary to suspend belief for Likeness) but like you I found French such a talented writer I didn't care. I finished Faithful Place about ten days ago and will be quite interested to see your reaction to it. Although it was a little less to my personal taste than the first two books, I still found the story wonderfully absorbing and the book a terrific read. I was also astonished at French's talent--she's managed to write something as good as, yet quite different in some respects, from her first two novels.

[Danielle]

Litlove--There were just too many other good things going for the story to keep me completely engaged. It was only after the fact that I started thinking about plausibility. But strange things do happen in the world, so why not.
Stefanie--Don't you wish you could call in sick and just hide with a book for a day! Move this one up your pile and as soon as you have your next break from classes you have to read it. This is (well it was for me anyway) a drop everything else sort of read!
Catharina--So glad you enjoyed it too. I hate that I can't make myself stay up late anymore reading, but I really am worthless and just fall asleep. But I ignored chores last weekend so I could read and finish it. She's a marvelous storyteller I think. Will you read the next one soon?
Janet--I loved both her books--even with the wrinkles. I know a lot of people were disappointed with the open ending on the first, but I thought it was just right. And the second book was just so interesting--even I was becoming seduced by the other four people in the house--I didn't want to put it down. I'm not very far into Faithful Place, but I will be concentrating on it this weekend. So far I like it, but I've not really gotten to the nitty gritty of the story. I like Frank, but what a family! She really is very good at telling original stories yet linking them together--I like that too! I wonder which character she'll use next to write her story around?

[catharina]

I'm afraid I'll have to exercise some patience as our library doesn't have Faithful Place yet.
If it takes too long I'll try ILL I think!

[Danielle]

Catharina--Maybe it's just as well to take a break between books and read a few others in the meantime. I don't usually read books by one author back to back like this, but I want to read it before it has to be returned to the library--one more week I have it.