I used to share a house with nine other people. They were cool people, all nine of them, but it was still far from perfect. I lacked a sense of privacy, even with my own room. I prefer going about things on my own. I can only imagine what it must have been like to spend every night in forceful merriment. In that sense, I tip my hat in the direction of the main character of The Likeness.
Detective Cassandra “Cassie” Maddox receives a phone call in the middle of the night urging her to come to a secluded location in a small town named Glenskehy, just outside of Dublin. There, in a ruined cottage, she finds something disturbing: a corpse that looks exactly like her, carrying the ID of Alexandra Madison – Cassie’s ID during her former undercover work. A quick investigation reveals that Lexie, as the woman had been calling herself, worked as a PhD student in English literature at the University College Dublin and lived with four friends in an old and derelict but beautiful mansion, Whitethorn House, in Glenskehy. As leads in the investigation dry up, Cassie’s former boss Frank, head of the undercover division, comes up with a plan to have Cassie take Lexie’s place to get close to her impenetrable and somewhat mysterious housemates. Cassie struggles with the idea, but eventually succumbs and heads to Whitethorn House.
This is the second novel in Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books and I read it after the third book but before the first one, because I’m stupid, so some of the problems I had with this book might be of my own making. Primarily it’s because it keeps referring to events from the first book, and had I read that one I probably would have appreciated the lack of explanation (I hate it when authors spent valuable pages on rehashing events from earlier installments) but now, it came across as vaguely tantalising at best and obscure at worst.
But aside from that, the entire plot requires a certain suspense of disbelief that I’m not sure I was entirely able to make. Apart from it being very convenient from a plot-technical point of view to have your double work as not just a detective, but one with undercover experience to boot, there’s the ethical aspect to the case, which is brushed aside so quickly that I suspect French knew she had a problem here, saw no way to fix it, and decided to ignore it instead.
That isn’t to say there isn’t anything to like here. Cassie, with her wry sense of humour masking her passion for the job and her desire to know the truth, is a likeable character, even if she tends to veer towards the gung-ho idealists you find in detective novels so often. The same goes for her boss, Frank, who is fast-talking, quick-witted and has a sharp eye for what drives Cassie. Cassie’s boyfriend, Sam, is sweet without being cloying. The housemates, too, are intriguing, though I like them less; they all kind of blend into one, though that is kind of the point, with the exception of humourless, dour Daniel, who owns the house and is the unofficial leader of the pack. French aims for brooding and mysterious but ends up at stilted and self-important.
The interactions between the characters are fun, lively, and in fitting with the characters, especially the idealism of the housemates and the machinations of the task force that Cassie works for. I was on the fence about the novel’s ending; parts of it seem unfinished. But the more I think about it, the more I believe that it’s better to leave some things unanswered, and there’s a certain elegance to the way the story is wrapped up.
But it’s a frustrating read, too, from the housemates’ bickering to Cassie’s increased reluctance to help out the investigation at the cost of her new friends, which ends up delaying the investigation needlessly (without wanting to give too much away, anyone who’s ever taken a plane in Europe knows what LHR, AMS and CDG means, especially when presented together). The conclusion drags on for far too long; even after the central mystery is resolved, a few chapters remain and they’re focused on Cassie, moving on with her life. I sense this, too, is probably more interesting for those who’ve read the first book.
All in all I didn’t hate it, but it definitely did not live up to my expectations. I do plan on reading the first book, though – I want to know what the fuss is about.
