Jacqueline Masumian's Reviews > The Likeness

I don't know how she does it, but Tana French can take two utterly unbelievable plot premises and create a totally credible and delightful mystery/police procedural, an engrossing tale full of beautiful prose, suspense, and deeply complex characters.

Cassie Maddox is a young Dublin cop who at one time worked Undercover but had to give it up. Now she's been called back by Frank Mackey to pose as a female murder victim, one who is her exact double and also bears her former undercover name, in order to draw out the killer. She becomes totally absorbed into a "family" of four twenty-something grad students living in an old Georgian manse and comes close to losing her objectivity and her life. All the characters, but especially Cassie and Frank, are so well drawn, the reader comes to know these clever people very well. Expertly written dialogue and an intriguing sense of place also contribute to this psychological drama.

I never cease to be amazed at how French's lovely prose weaves its way through a messy crime story with such agility. The Likeness is a very entertaining, rewarding read. It is the second in French's Dublin Murder Squad series but does not necessarily have to be read in order, though I must confess I now want to go back and re-read the first, In the Woods.