SUMMARY: The haunting follow up to the Edgar Award–winning debut In the WoodsTana French astonished critics and readers alike with her mesmerizing debut novel, In the Woods. Now both French and Detective Cassie Maddox return to unravel a case even more sinister and enigmatic than the first. Six months after the events of In the Woods, 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. Suddenly, Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more importantly, who is this girl? A disturbing tale of shifting identities, The Likeness firmly establishes Tana French as an important voice in suspense fiction.

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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_

" The Likeness [is] a book even better than the first, which was very good indeed. . . . The suspense is gut-grinding . . . A wonderful book."
-_New York Daily News_

" For The Likeness, [French] has brought back detective Cassie Maddox and fashioned a plot that harks back to both Donna Tartt and Wilkie Collins."
-_The Washington Post_

" [French's] already signature blend of psychological insight, beautiful writing and wry humor is on display once more in The Likeness."
-_The Baltimore Sun_