The Likeness

Tana French

Book 2 of Dublin Murder Squad

Language: English

Publisher: Penguin

Published: Jan 1, 2008

Description:

In the Woods*, it's six months later and Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder squad. But an urgent telephone call beckons Cassie to a grisly crime scene. The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used as an undercover cop. Suddenly, Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more importantly, who is this girl? 

Best Novel of the Year by Salon.com, The Christian Science Monitor, and Publisher’s Weekly
Crime Fiction Favorite by Los Angeles Times
Runner Up for Best Thriller of the Year, New York Magazine

From the Trade Paperback edition.

**

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

“Tana French puts a clever twist on every lonely child’s fantasy of leading a parallel life when she creates an alternate identity for her detective in THE LIKENESS... Cassie is a character — the eternal lost child — you can really care about.
--New York Times Book Review 
*

“The writing is glorious, and the characters and drama so compelling”
--The Boston Globe*

“Savor French’s turns of phrase and simmering suspense until the prospect of finishing shuts all distractions out.”
--The Baltimore Sun

“The verve of her writing illuminates the uncanny experience of stepping into someone else’s life. [The Likeness is] a sophisticated thriller.”
--The Dallas Morning News

Praise for Tana French 

“When you read Ms. French — and she has become required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting — make only one assumption: All of your initial assumptions are wrong”
—*The New York Times*

"Tana French is the most interesting, most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years."
*The Washington Post

"[Tana French] inspires cultic devotion in readers…most crime fiction is diverting; French's is consuming."
The New Yorker
*

“To say Tana French is one of the great thriller writers is really too limiting. Rather she’s simply this: a truly great writer.”­ 
—Gillian Flynn

“French is a poet of mood and a master builder of plots.” ­
*The Washington Post

“One of the most distinct and exciting new voices in crime writing.” 
—The Wall Street Journal
 
“French does something fresh with every novel, each one as powerful as the last but in a very different manner. Perhaps she has superpowers of her own? Whatever the source of her gift, it’s only growing more miraculous with every book.” 
*—Salon.com