The Likeness

 

The Likeness by Tana French

Dublin Murder Squad, #2

Mystery

2008

Finished on 3/18/2026

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

The haunting follow-up to Tana French's bestselling, Edgar Award-winning debut, In the Woods.

Six months after the events of In the Woods, Detective Cassie Maddox is still recovering. Transferred out of Dublin's Murder squad at her own request, she vows never to return. That is, until her boyfriend, Detective Sam O'Neill, calls her one beautiful spring morning, urgently asking her to come to a murder scene in the small town of Glenskehy.

It isn't until Cassie sees the body that she understands Sam's insistence. The dead girl is Cassie's double, and she carries ID identifying her as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie herself used years ago when she worked undercover. The question becomes not only who killed this girl, but who was this girl.

Frank Mackey, Cassie's former undercover boss, sees the opportunity of a lifetime. Having played Lexie Madison once before, Cassie is in the perfect position to take her place. The police will tell the media and Lexie's four housemates that the stab wound wasn't fatal. And Cassie will go on living Lexie's life until the killer is lured out to finish off the job.

It's a brilliant idea, until Cassie finds herself more emotionally involved in Lexie's life than she anticipated. Sharing the charming ramshackle old Whitehorn House with Lexie's strange, tight-knit group of university friends, Cassie is slowly seduced by the victim's way of life, by the thought of working on a murder investigation again, and by the mystery of the victim herself. 

As Cassie nears the truth about what has happened to Lexie Madison and who she really was, the lines between professional and personal, work and play, reality and fantasy become desperately tangled, and Cassie moves closer to losing herself forever.

In the Woods introduced readers to Tana French's brilliance and subtle craftsmanship. But it is The Likeness that firmly establishes her as an important voice in suspense fiction, a voice that will attract new readers as well as satisfy the large audience she garnered for her first bestselling novel.

It's been 17 years since I read The Likeness. Having recently re-read In the Woods, I was eager to give this second installment in Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series a second reading. Tina (Turn the Page blog) and I decided to make this a buddy read, but I'm afraid I didn't play by the established rules (reading 50 pages at a time) and read well ahead, finishing much more quickly than anticipated. Tana French has a way of pulling me in and keeping me reading way past my bedtime! 

With that said, this mystery took a bit longer to get engrossed than In the Woods. That could be due to the fact that I knew the basic premise of the plot and was eager to get to the part in which Cassie moved into Whitehorn House. With so many years between reads, I wasn't nearly as concerned about Cassie's roommates figuring out that she wasn't Lexie. I knew that would come toward the end of the book, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat, worrying that she would say or do something to raise suspicions. 

One of the things about reading a book a second time is knowing enough about the plot that you can relax and pay more attention to the writing and the more minute details rather than zipping along at break neck speed to find out how it's all going to end. And yet I was still surprised, as the finale grew closer, that there was so much that I'd forgotten.

I'll leave you with my initial review from 2009 here:

Wow! What an amazing book! I was immediately drawn in at the first chapter and never once grew tired or bored with the plot or characters. This is one of the most engrossing, entertaining, and enjoyable books I've read in years. I read for hours on end after work. I read late in the night. I read before work and, yes, even at stoplights. I could not put this book down! Nearly 500 pages and French never once missed a beat. The pacing is remarkably even, the breathtaking suspense incredibly sustained. Perhaps, like Cassie, I began to feel a part of the cozy group of friends, anxiously awaiting a revelation about Lexie's murder. As the details were finally revealed in the closing chapters, I found myself holding my breath with anticipation, laughing out loud, not because the situation was funny, but because of nervous tension.

Reminiscent of Dennis Lehane's literary mysteries, The Likeness is much more than a whodunit. The characters are finely drawn, springing to life with believable dialogue. The odd lifestyle of these eccentric roommates isn't the only aspect of the novel that creates such taut suspense. Whitethorn House (a creepy rambling mansion in which the five English post-grads reside) and the surrounding countryside are very much characters in and of themselves.

Cassie, on her return to undercover:

It felt good, getting stuck into the case like this, like I was just a Murder detective again and she was just another victim; it spread through me strong and sweet and soothing as hot whiskey after a long day in wind and rain. Frank was sprawled casually in his chair, but I could feel him watching me, and I knew I was starting to sound too interested. I shrugged, leaned my head back against the wall and gazed up at the ceiling.

and

Going to sleep on your first night undercover is something you never forget. All day you've been pure concentrated control, watching yourself as sharply and ruthlessly as you watch everyone and everything around you; but come night, alone on a strange mattress in a room where the air smells different, you've got no choice but to open your hands and let go, fall into sleep and into someone else's life like a pebble falling through cool green water. Even your first time, you know that in that second something irreversible will start happening, that in the morning you'll wake up changed. I needed to go into that bare, with nothing from my own life on my body, the way woodcutters' children in fairy tales have to leave their protections behind to enter the enchanted castle; the way votaries in old religions used to go naked to their initiation rites.

I held my breath, worried that Cassie would eventually make a slight mistake in her character, blowing her cover and putting herself in danger.

This is the part I didn't tell Sam: bad stuff happens to undercovers. A few of them get killed. Most lose friends, marriages, relationships. A couple turn feral, cross over to the other side so gradually that they never see it happening till it's too late, and end up with discreet, complicated early-retirement plans. Some, and never the ones you'd think, lose their nerve—no warning, they just wake up one morning and all at once it hits them what they're doing, and they freeze like tightrope walkers who've looked down[...]And some go the other way, the most lethal way of all: when the pressure gets to be too much, it's not their nerve that breaks, it's their fear. They lose the capacity to be afraid, even when they should be. These can't ever go home again. They're like those First World War airmen, the finest ones, shining in their recklessness and invincible, who got home and found that home had no place for what they were. Some people are are undercovers all the way to the bone; the job has taken them whole.

I was never afraid of getting killed and I was never afraid of losing my nerve. My kind of courage holds up best under fire; it's different dangers, more refined and insidious ones, that shake me. But the other things: I worried about those. Frank told me once—and I don't know whether he's right or not, and I didn't tell Sam this either—that all the best undercovers have a dark thread woven into them, somewhere.

My husband enjoyed the book, yet felt the mystery fell short due to the unbelievable set of coincidences. And I suppose he's right, to some extent. After all, what are the odds that one's doppelganger just happens to be a police detective? I, on the other hand, was able to suspend disbelief and was thoroughly entertained. My copy of the book is littered with Post-It notes, marking passages I thought might reveal a hidden clue as I flipped back and forth, trying to untangle the intricate threads of a skillfully crafted web.

This is one of those compelling mysteries I continually found myself imagining on the big screen. The Talented Mr. Ripley, which also involves a complicated masquerade, lurked in my consciousness as I read. I can even envision Jude Law and Matt Damon playing Daniel and Justin. And, perhaps, Audrey Tautou as Cassie.

While The Likeness is a follow-up to In the Woods, I believe they stand alone and can be read in any order. It's early in the year, but as of today, The Likeness is my #1 read in 2009. And from what I've read, French is working on a third, this time narrated by Cassie's boss, Frank Mackey. Until then, I plan to pick up Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which has been compared to The Likeness. I'm ready for another gothic mystery!

Five stars, Tana!

Me again (in 2026). 

This wasn't the perfect 5-star read this second time around. I blame it on knowing how it would all turn out in the end. Kind of like knowing how The Sixth Sense or Shutter Island ends. But all in all, a very good read. 

Highly recommend!

September

 

September by Rosamunde Pilcher

Fiction

1990

Finished on September 12, 2024

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

50 years is a long way to look ahead, but looking back it doesn’t seem any time at all. Makes you wonder what life’s all about.

Publisher's Blurb:

Perhaps once in a generation, a novel seemingly comes out of nowhere and explodes onto the bestseller lists. Such a book was Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers. With well over the three million copies sold in the U.S. and Canada, and close to four million worldwide, it was a publishing phenomenon, on national bestseller lists for two years! 

An audience of millions has awaited Rosamunde Pilcher's new novel, and with September they will not be disappointed. Rich and involving, it teems with memorable and above all human characters coping with universal human difficulties and experiences. Set in Mrs. Pilcher's native Scotland, the novel begins in May as invitations are being written for a party in September. September is an extraordinary month in Scotland, when a brief but glorious summer is ending and the long, gray winter has yet to begin. It is a time of almost frenzied rounds of parties and houseguests and reels. September is a month when marriage is proposed and marriages break up, when even normally reticent Scots, Londoners, and Americans drink a little too much, dance a little too late into the night, when promised are made, hearts are broken, and long-buried family secrets can come to light. 

With consummate skill, Rosamunde Pilcher draws more than a dozen major characters from London, New York, Scotland, and Spain to the little town of Strathcroy. The occasion is to be a twenty-first birthday party, but as May becomes June and the summer commences, the reader can almost feel the tug of inexorable fate propelling Pilcher's marvelous characters to their inevitable--and often surprising--destinies. 

September is a novel to be savored, a curl-up-under-the-covers kind of old-fashioned read hardly anyone knows how to write anymore. It is a book to be savored and cherished--not just in September, but in any month of any year.

Earlier this year, two of my blogging friends and I decided on a buddy-read of Rosamunde Pilcher's hefty novel, September. We didn't start reading it in the month of September, but close enough! This was my second reading of the novel, but most (if not all!) of the details were long forgotten from that first encounter. I read the hardcover edition that I purchased many years ago, and discovered that books over five hundred pages are very difficult to read in bed. I was tempted to download the audio version, but felt more inclined to read the print edition, so I toughed it out. 

As mentioned in the publisher's blurb, Pilcher peoples this particular novel with numerous characters, and I was forced to start a cheat sheet with each character's traits and relationships to others in the story. As one would expect, it wasn't long before I no longer needed to glance at that list, but it did come in handy during the early chapters. 

Readers familiar with Rosamunde Pilcher's works know what a comfortable reading experience she brings to the page. Her descriptions of the homes, as well as the surrounding locations, are rich with domestic details, making this reader consider a trip to Scotland.

As Isobel, worn out with the daily demands of her busy life, retreated from time to time to the linen room, so her husband found solace in his workshop. This was the basement of Croy, an area of stone-flagged passages and dimly lighted cellars. The old boiler lived down here, a brooding, smelly monster that looked large enough to drive a liner, and demanded constant and regular attention and enormous quantities of coke. As well, one or two other rooms were still employed —to store unused china, unwanted items of furniture, the coal and the logs and a much-diminished wine cellar. But mostly, the basement stood deserted, hung with cobwebs, and invaded each year by families of field mice.

And 

Sunday morning. Overcast, very still, very quiet, hushed with the weekly inertia of a Scottish Sabbath. It had rained during the night, leaving puddles by the roadside and gardens dripping with moisture. In Strathcroy, cottages slumbered, curtains stayed drawn. Slowly the occupants stirred, rose, opened doors, lit fires, made cups of tea. Plumes of peat-smoke rose, straight, from chimney-pots. Dogs were walked, hedges clipped, cars washed. Mr. Ishak opened up his shop for the sale  of morning rolls, milk, cigarettes, Sunday newspapers, and any other commodity that a family might need to get through the empty day. From the tower of the Presbyterian church, the bell tolled.

In addition to September, I have read all of Pilcher's full-length novels (The Shell Seekers, Winter's Solstice, and Coming Home) at least once, as well as several of her novellas. I prefer her longer novels to her shorter works, and will most likely re-read the former again in the coming years. 

Thanks for the nudge, JoAnn and Tina, to read this family saga once again. While not my favorite (that may be Coming Home or Winter's Solstice), it didn't disappoint! A satisfying read. Highly recommend!

The Thorn Birds

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Fiction
1977 Harper Collins
Finished: 10/6/12
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)



There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.

Publisher's Blurb:

The magnificent epic, one of the most beloved novels of all time.

Colleen McCullough's sweeping saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback has enthralled readers the world over. This is the chronicle of three generations of Clearys, ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. Most of all, it is the story of only daughter Meggie and her lifelong relationship with the haunted priest Father Ralph de Bricassart—and intense joining of two hearts and souls that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma.

A poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit, Colleen McCullough's acclaimed masterwork remains a monumental literary achievement—a landmark novel to be cherished and read again and again.


The Thorn Birds was published 35 years ago. If my memory is correct, I read it sometime around 1981, when I was 20 years old. I’ve always considered the novel one of my all-time favorites from my life as a young wife and mother, much like The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher, which I read in the late 1980s. So when Bellezza and I agreed on a buddy-read, I was very happy to finally have a reason to give this chunkster a second reading. We decided to read it in September, so I began on August 31st, which was a big mistake. I should’ve started on July 31st, as it took me almost 6 weeks to finish! It’s probably the longest book I’ve read (excluding audio books) this year, coming in at 673 pages in the trade paperback edition.

So, did it stand the test of time? Well, you’d think with all those Post-it flags, I’d say it was fantastic, but unfortunately, this was not the case. I certainly liked it well enough to read the entire book, never once feeling like I wanted to quit, but it didn’t wow me the way it did when I was a young woman. Was it the illicit love affair that intrigued that young wife back in the 80s, much as Fifty Shades of Grey is doing for young women in 2012? Was I simply young and naïve, never having read anything as scandalous as this? I’m not sure, but it certainly didn’t bowl me over this second time around. If anything, I couldn’t really see what all the fuss was about.

There was so much about this novel that I’d forgotten. It isn’t simply a story about Meggie and Ralph’s love for one another, but about the country and about Meggie’s family and her upbringing. Oh, I shudder to think of attending a Catholic school -- or at least, a Catholic school such as the one described in this book! Thankfully, I was raised Episcopalian!

As they followed the upward rise of the cane above her own hands Meggie’s eyes closed involuntarily, so she did not see the descent. But the pain was like a vast explosion, a scorching, searing invasion of her flesh right down to the bone; even as the ache spread tingling up her forearm the next cut came, and by the time it had reached her shoulder the final cut across her fingertips was screaming along the same path, all the way through to her heart. She fastened her teeth in her lower lip and bit down on it, too ashamed and too proud to cry, too angry and indignant at the injustice of it to dare open her eyes and look at Sister Agatha; the lesson was sinking in, even if the crux of it was not what Sister Agatha intended to reach. [Meggie’s punishment for arriving late on her first day of school.]

Life with a stoic mother wasn’t as terrible as the discipline she suffered at school, but I still felt sorry for Meggie:

As for Meggie, she was incapable of equating Teresa’s beaming, portly little mother with her own slender unsmiling mother, so she never thought: I wish Mum hugged and kissed me. What she did think was: I wish Teresa’s mum hugged and kissed me. Though images of hugs and kisses were far less in her mind than images of the willow pattern tea set. So delicate, so thin and wafery, so beautiful! Oh, if only she had a willow pattern tea set, and could give Agnes afternoon tea out of a deep blue-and-white cup in a deep blue-and-white saucer!

And then she and her family had to move to Gillanbone:

In the morning they stared, awed and dismayed, at a landscape so alien they had not dreamed anything like it existed on the same planet as New Zealand. The rolling hills were there certainly, but absolutely nothing else reminiscent of home. It was all brown and grey, even the trees! The winter wheat was already turned a fawnish silver by the glaring sun, miles upon miles of it rippling and bending in the wind, broken only by stands of thin, spindling, blue-leafed trees and dusty clumps of tired grey bushes. Fee’s stoical eyes surveyed the scene without changing expression, but poor Meggie’s were full of tears. It was horrible, fenceless and vast, without a trace of green.

I didn’t recall Mrs. Carson’s (Meggie’s grandmother) attraction to Father de Bricassart, but it was quite apparent upon this second reading:

She accepted the deliberately blatant flattery in the spirit in which it was intended, enjoying his beauty, his attentiveness, his barbed and subtle mind; truly he would make a magnificent cardinal. In all her life she could not remember seeing a better-looking man, nor one who used his beauty in quite the same way. He had to be aware of how he looked: the height and the perfect proportions of his body, the fine aristocratic features, the way every physical element had been put together with a degree of care about the appearance of the finished product God lavished on few of His creations. From the loose black curls of his head and the startling blue of his eyes to the small, slender hands and feet, he was perfect. Yes, he had to be conscious of what he was. And yet there was an aloofness about him, a way he had of making her feel he had never been enslaved by his beauty, nor ever would be. He would use it to get what he wanted without compunction if it would help, but not as though he was enamored of it; rather as if he deemed people beneath contempt for being influenced by it. And she would have given much to know what his past life had made him so.

Curious, how many priests were handsome as Adonis, had the sexual magnetism of Don Juan. Did they espouse celibacy as a refuge from the consequences?

But I do remember Father Ralph’s initial fondness for Meggie:

Just why he was so fond of Meggie Father Ralph didn’t know, nor for that matter did he spend much time wondering about it. It had begun with pity that day in the dusty station yard when he had noticed her lagging behind; set apart from the rest of her family by virtue of her sex, he had shrewdly guessed. As to why Frank [Meggie’s older brother] also moved on an outer perimeter, this did not intrigue him at all, nor did he feel moved to pity Frank. There was something in Frank which killed tender emotions: a dark heart, a spirit lacking inner light. But Meggie? She had moved him unbearably, and he didn’t really know why. There was the color of her hair, which pleased him; the color and form of her eyes, like her mother’s and therefore beautiful, but so much sweeter, more expressive; and her character, which he saw as the perfect female character, passive yet enormously strong. No rebel, Meggie; on the contrary. All her life she would obey, move within the boundaries of her female fate.

Yet none of it added up to the full total. Perhaps, had he looked more deeply into himself, he might have seen that what he felt for her was the curious result of time, and place, and person. No one thought of her as important, which meant there was a space in her life into which he could fit himself and be sure of her love; she was a child, and therefore no danger to his way of life or his priestly reputation; she was beautiful, and he enjoyed beauty; and, least acknowledged of all, she filled an empty space in his life which his God could not, for she had warmth and a human solidity. Because he could not embarrass her family by giving her gifts, he gave her as much of his company as he could, and spent time and thought on redecorating her room at the presbytery; not so much to see her pleasure as to creature a fitting setting for his jewel. No pinchbeck for Meggie.

A few final thoughts for Bellezza…

Wasn’t Luke awful? I hated his selfish, self-centered attitude about life and marriage. I don’t think I would have been as proud as Meggie and would’ve caught the first train back to Drogheda… at least I say that now, as a 50-year-old. I wonder what I would’ve done as a young bride…

And, oh my. I’d completely forgotten about Justine and Dane… and the Second World War. This was quite the saga!

I honestly can’t recall if I ever saw the mini-series, starring Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward and Barbara Stanwyck. I’ll add it to my Netflix queue and give it a go.