The Likeness by Tana French

I had just finished In the Woods when I went to the bookstore with my parents, which sometimes means I walk out of the bookstore with a free (to me) book (I love having parents who are just as tempted by bookstores as I am). The Likeness caught my eye this time because I had enjoyed Into the Woods enough (with some caveats that I already wrote about in my review) to be intrigued, but probably wouldn't have bought the book on my own for awhile.

I actually enjoyed The Likeness more than In the Woods, at least in some ways. I thought the plot was stronger, and Tana French didn't try to pull off that thing she did in her first novel that I won't say for fear of giving spoilers. That was a good thing. I thought the story was engaging, the mystery was intriguing, and the end was satisfying.

The story follows one of the characters from In the Woods, Cassie, some time after the first novel has ended. We already know that Cassie has a history as an undercover detective, and in The Likeness, she finds herself drawn back into that world when a young woman, almost identical to herself, and bearing ID with the name of her former undercover identity, is found murdered outside of a small town near Dublin. Before the death becomes public, Cassie takes on the young woman's (or the young woman's assumed identity) and integrates herself into her life in the hopes of both discovering her killer and discovering who she really is. It's an intriguing idea for a mystery, an idea that stretches credulity a little, but I think Tana French pulled it off fairly well.

Still, it didn't really make me want to continue to read the novels Tana French seems now to be churning out at the pace of a proper mystery novelist. The problem, for me, was the characters. One of the things that drew me into In the Woods was the depth of the characters and the emotional attachments between them. It felt very real to me, very humanly complex. But in The Likeness, that same depth of character and emotional attachment felt overdone. In the Woods, I realized, was an exploration of intense friendship, the likes of which I have never experienced myself, and when the same exploration of equally intense friendship permeated The Likeness, and involved one of the very same characters, it stretched my credulity even more than the story. People, I think, are not like that. Either that, or my own friendships are woefully shallow and inadequate. (They don't feel that way to me.)

So overall I did enjoy the read. I wouldn't not recommend it, especially if you like mysteries. But I just wasn't totally sold.