Publisher Description

New York Times bestselling author Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Hunter, is "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post) and "inspires cultic devotion in readers" (The New Yorker).

"Required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting." —The New York Times

In the "compelling (The Boston Globe) and "pitch perfect (Entertainment Weekly) follow-up to Tana French's runaway bestseller In the Woods, Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad—until an urgent telephone call brings her back to an eerie crime scene.
 
The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used as an undercover cop. Suddenly, Cassie is back undercover, to find out not only who killed this young woman, but, more importantly, who she was.
 
The Likeness is a supremely suspenseful story exploring the nature of identity and belonging.

Author Biography

Tana French is also the author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, and The Trespasser. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.

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**

"Tana French puts a clever twist on every lonely child's fantasy of leading a parallel life when she creates an alternate identity for her detective in THE LIKENESS... Cassie is a character — the eternal lost child — you can really care about."
--New York Times Book Review 

"The writing is glorious, and the characters and drama so compelling"
--The Boston Globe*
 
"Savor French's turns of phrase and simmering suspense until the prospect of finishing shuts all distractions out."
--The Baltimore Sun
 
"The verve of her writing illuminates the uncanny experience of stepping into someone else's life. [The Likeness is] a sophisticated thriller."
--The Dallas Morning News

Praise for Tana French 

"When you read Ms. French — and she has become required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting — make only one assumption: All of your initial assumptions are wrong"
—The New York Times

"Tana French is the most interesting, most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years."
—The Washington Post

"[Tana French] inspires cultic devotion in readers…most crime fiction is diverting; French's is consuming."
—The New Yorker

"To say Tana French is one of the great thriller writers is really too limiting. Rather she's simply this: a truly great writer."­ 
—Gillian Flynn

 "French is a poet of mood and a master builder of plots." ­
—The Washington Post
 
"One of the most distinct and exciting new voices in crime writing." 
—The Wall Street Journal
 
"French does something fresh with every novel, each one as powerful as the last but in a very different manner. Perhaps she has superpowers of her own? Whatever the source of her gift, it's only growing more miraculous with every book." 
—Salon.com

Review Quote

[Tana French] aces her second novel. The Likeness[is a] nearly pitch- perfect follow-up to her 2007 debut thriller, In the Woods.

Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION The follow-up to Tana French''s bestselling debut In the Woods finds Detective Cassie Maddox shaken from the events of a dangerous murder investigation and working a desk job in Domestic Violence at police headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. She''s just settling into her new suits and a quieter, if less satisfying, life when her boyfriend Detective Sam O''Neill calls her to the scene of a murder. Cassie looks at the victim, stabbed in the chest and left for dead in a ramshackle rural cottage, and finds her mirror image. Identification reveals the victim''s name is Lexie Madison--the very same handle Cassie once used as an undercover agent. With no leads or suspects to speak of, Cassie''s boss, Frank Mackey, recognizes a unique opportunity: they can pretend that Lexie survived the stabbing and Cassie can go undercover as Lexie to solve the crime. At first, Cassie is reluctant to play along, but as she learns more about the case--and its mysterious victim--she realizes that the only way to exorcise the dead girl from her mind is to go into her life and find out what happened to her. Posing as Lexie, Cassie becomes a graduate student at Trinity College and moves in with Lexie''s four roommates, a close but odd and anachronistic bunch sharing and rehabbing an old country estate named Whitethorn House. The roommates, accepting her story, seem to receive Lexie''s return warmly and their idyllic life is practically a vacation for Cassie. Amid the lively crew, the guarded detective, orphaned at an early age, finds an unexpected sense of belonging. Soon, though, Cassie learns that Whitethorn is the subject of local lore and a decades-long target of village hostility. And as Cassie goes deeper into Lexie''s world she realizes that Lexie''s secrets may be more dangerous than anyone imagined. Meanwhile, Frank and Sam worry that Cassie is getting a little too close to Lexie for comfort, endangering the investigation and, quite possibly, her own life in the process. With her richly nuanced characters and deep psychological insight, Tana French explores themes of self-invention, deception, and the ways truth can emerge from even the most convincing disguises. Set against a backdrop of tightly knit class and cultural tensions, The Likeness goes beyond the conventions of the whodunit to comment on the inequities and misguided values of modern society. In her second novel, French, a seasoned actress, proves that she''s also a writer of distinction. Her taut and riveting narrative enchants and thrills at every turn. ABOUT TANA FRENCH Tana French is the author of the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award-winning thriller In the Woods . She has lived in Ireland, Italy, the United States, and Malawi. She trained as a professional actress at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where she lives, and has worked in film, theater, and voiceover. A CONVERSATION WITH TANA FRENCH Q. The Likeness picks up where your first book left off, and while the events of In the Woods inform some of the action here, this story is told from a different character''s perspective. Why did you decide to write a follow-up rather than a straight-ahead sequel? I want to write about the crucial turning points in life, the crossroads that make all the difference; those moments when you know that once you make your choice, your life will never be in the same place it would have been if you''d chosen the other way. In the Woods was about that crucial moment in Rob Ryan''s life, but the thing is that any given lifetime just doesn''t contain all that many of those moments. So when I started thinking about my second book, I had three choices: keep dumping the poor guy into huge life-defining decisions; lower the stakes and write about less important parts of his life; or switch the narrator. I thought the last one was the most interesting, so I moved on to Cassie. I figured she deserved a book of her own anyway. Q. Early on in the book, Cassie Maddox describes a profile of the killer. Did you consult with detectives about criminal profiling or draw on your own insight about human nature? A little of both. Cassie isn''t a trained profiler--the Irish police force doesn''t have trained profilers; when they need one, they work with someone from the United States. or the U.K. She''s just fallen into being the Murder squad''s resident profiler by accident. Because she studied psychology in college, her colleagues use her as a fallback profiler, so she''s studied it as much as she can so as not to steer them wrong. This made it a whole lot easier for me to match her knowledge. I just did what Cassie would have done: read all the books and case studies I could get my hands on. Profiling does involve a certain amount of basic knowledge of human nature. If a criminal takes his time at a crime scene, just for example, that implies that he''s quite comfortable there and has a high degree of confidence that he won''t be interrupted; in other words, there''s a good chance that he has prior knowledge about the location. That''s common sense. But a huge amount of profiling is based on statistics--some of them counterintuitive--about crime patterns. If the stats tell you that 95 percent of knife attacks in a certain city are committed by white males aged between sixteen and twenty, and you''re investigating a knife attack, then you know there''s a 95 percent chance that you''re looking for a teenaged white male. Real profilers build their profiles on a combination of these elements: probability based on the statistics, and intuition based on their professional experience and their knowledge of human nature. I tried to do the same with Cassie''s attempts at profiling. Q. As an actor, do you see parallels between the process of going undercover and the process of creating or embodying a fictional character? Definitely, but the parallels have a limit. In acting, in writing a first-person novel, and in going undercover, your goal is basically to keep out of the way as much as possible: to speak for the character, as thoroughly and deeply as possible, and let your audience see the character rather than you. The difference is obvious, but it''s also crucial: in writing and acting, the audience isn''t intended to think that the fictional character is real. Their imaginations work together with the writer''s or actor''s to create the character; it''s a collaborative process. In undercover work, though, there''s nothing collaborative about it. The "audience" isn''t in on the process; they''re supposed to believe that the fictional character is completely real. The undercover is carefully, intently trying to deceive them, and the stakes are life and death and serious jail time. Undercover work is much darker, and much more morally charged. Q. The idea of hiding behind another persona in order to escape a painful past is a recurring theme in this book--most obviously with Cassie and Lexie but we also see it with the other inhabitants of Whitethorn House. Is there any way in which posing as someone else can be a healthy exercise? Do you think a person has to be wounded in some sense to pull off the charade successfully? On the contrary, actually, I think that the stronger and healthier a person is, the more likely it is that he or she can do a good job of being someone else. To go back to the acting parallel, I know some people do cling to the clich

Excerpt from Book

This is Lexie Madison''s story, not mine. I''d love to tell you one without getting into the other, but it doesn''t work that way. I used to think I sewed us together at the edges with my own hands, pulled the stitches tight and I could unpick them any time I wanted. Now I think it always ran deeper than that and farther, underground; out of sight and way beyond my control. This much is mine, though: everything I did. Frank puts it all down to the others, mainly to Daniel, while as far as I can tell Sam thinks that, in some obscure and slightly bizarro way, it was Lexie''s fault. When I say it wasn''t like that, they give me careful sideways looks and change the subject--I get the feeling Frank thinks I have some creepy variant of Stockholm syndrome. That does happen to undercovers sometimes, but not this time. I''m not trying to protect anyo≠ there''s no one left to protect. Lexie and the others will never know they''re taking the blame and wouldn''t care if they did. But give me more credit than that. Someone else may have dealt the hand, but I picked it up off the table, I played every card, and I had my reasons. This is the main thing you need to know about Alexandra Madison: she never existed. Frank Mackey and I invented her, a long time ago, on a bright summer afternoon in his dusty office on Harcourt Street. He wanted people to infiltrate a drug ring in University College Dublin. I wanted the job, maybe more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. He was a legend: Frank Mackey, still in his thirties and already running undercover operations; the best Undercover agent Ireland''s ever had, people said, reckless and fearless, a tightrope artist with no net, ever. He walked into IRA cells and criminal gangs like he was walking into his local pub. Everyone had told me the story: when the Snake--a career gangster and five-star wacko, who once left one of his own men quadriplegic for not buying his round--got suspicious and threatened to use a nail gun on Frank''s hands, Frank looked him in the eye without breaking a sweat and bluffed him down till the Snake slapped him on the back and gave him a fake Rolex by way of apology. Frank still wears it. I was a shiny green rookie, only a year out of Templemore Training College. A couple of days earlier, when Frank had sent out the call for cops who had a college education and could pass for early twenties, I had been wearing a neon yellow vest that was too big for me and patrolling a small town in Sligo where most of the locals looked disturbingly alike. I should have been nervous of him, but I wasn''t, not at all. I wanted the assignment too badly to have room for anything else. His office door was open and he was sitting on the edge of his desk, wearing jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, flipping through my file. The office was small and had a disheveled look, like he used it mainly for storage. The desk was empty, not even a family photo; on the shelves, paperwork was mixed in with blues CDs, tabloids, a poker set and a woman''s pink cardigan with the tags still on. I decided I liked this guy. "Cassandra Maddox," he said, glancing up. "Yes, sir," I said. He was average height, stocky but fit, with good shoulders and close-cut brown hair. I''d been expecting someone so nondescript he was practically invisible, maybe the Cancer Man from The X Files , but this guy had rough, blunt features and wide blue eyes, and the kind of presence that leaves heat streaks on the air where he''s been. He wasn''t my type, but I was pretty sure he got a lot of female attention. "Frank. ''Sir'' is for desk jockeys." His accent was old inner-city Dublin, subtle but deliberate, like a challenge. He slid off the desk and held out his hand. "Cassie," I said, shaking it. He pointed at a chair and went back to his perch on the desk. "Says here," he said, tapping my file, "you''re good under pressure." It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about. Back when I was a trainee posted to a scuzzy part of Cork city, I had talked down a panicked teenage schizophrenic who was threatening to cut his own throat with his grandfather''s straight razor. I had almost forgotten about that. It hadn''t occurred to me, till then, that this was probably why I was up for this job. "I hope so," I said. "You''re, what--twenty-seven?" "Twenty-six." The light through the window was on my face and he gave me a long, considering look. "You can do twenty-one, no problem. Says here you''ve three years of college. Where?" "Trinity. Psychology." His eyebrows shot up, mock-impressed. "Ah, a professional. Why didn''t you finish?" "I developed an unknown-to-science allergy to Anglo-Irish accents," I told him. He liked that. "UCD going to bring you out in a rash?" "I''ll take my antihistamines." Frank hopped off his desk and went to the window, motioning me to follow. "OK," he said. "See that couple down there?" A guy and a girl, walking up the street, talking. She found keys and let them into a depressing apartment block. "Tell me about them," Frank said. He leaned back against the window and hooked his thumbs in his belt, watching me. "They''re students," I said. "Book bags. They''d been food shopping--the carrier bags from Dunne''s. She''s better off than he is; her jacket was expensive, but he had a patch on his jeans, and not in a trendy way." "They a couple? Friends? Flatmates?" "A couple. They walked closer than friends, tilted their heads closer." "They going out long?" I liked this, the new way my mind was working. "A while, yeah," I said. Frank cocked an eyebrow like a question, and for a moment I wasn''t sure how I knew; then it clicked. "They didn''t look at each other when they were talking. New couples look at each other all the time; established ones don''t need to check in as often." "Living together?" "No, or he''d have automatically gone for his keys as well. That''s her place. She has at least one flatmate, though. They both looked up at a window: checking to see if the curtains were open." "How''s their relationship?" "Good. She made him laugh--guys mostly don''t laugh at a girl''s jokes unless they''re still at the chat-up stage. He was carrying both the Dunne''s bags, and she held the door open for him before she went in: they look after each other." Frank gave me a nod. "Nicely done. Undercover''s half intuition--and I don''t mean psychic shite. I mean noticing things and analyzing them, before you even know you''re doing it. The rest is speed and balls. If you''re going to say something or do something, you do it fast and you do it with total conviction. If you stop to second-guess yourself, you''re fucked, possibly dead. You''ll be out of touch a lot, the next year or two. Got family?" "An aunt and uncle," I said. "Boyfriend?" "Yes." "You''ll be able to contact them, but they won''t be able to contact you. They going to be OK with that?" "They''ll have to be," I said. He was still slouching easily against the window frame, but I caught the sharp glint of blue: he was watching me hard. "This isn''t some Colombian cartel we''re talking about, and you''ll be dealing mostly with the lowest ranks-- at first, anyway--but you''ve got to know this job isn''t safe. Half these people are binned out of their heads most of the time, and the other half are very serious about what they do, which means none of them would have any problem with the idea of killing you. That make you nervous?" "No," I said, and I meant it. "Not at all." "Lovely," said Frank. "Let''s get coffee and get to work." It took me a minute to realize that that was it: I was in. I''d been expecting a three-hour interview and a stack of weird tests with inkblots and questions about my mother, but Frank doesn''t work like that. I still don''t know where, along the way, he made the decision. For a long time, I waited for the right moment to ask him. Now I''m not sure, any more, whether I want to know what he saw in me; what it was that told him I would be good at this. We got burnt-tasting coffee and a packet of chocolate biscuits from the canteen, and spent the rest of the day coming up with Alexandra Madison. I picked the name--"You''ll remember it better that way," Frank said. Madison, because it sounds enough like my own surname to make me turn around, and Lexie because when I was a kid that was the name of my imaginary sister. Frank found a big sheet of paper and drew a timeline of her life for me. "You were born in Holles Street Hospital on the first of March 1979. Father, Sean Madison, a minor diplomat, posted in Canada--that''s so we can pull you out fast if we need to: give you a family emergency, and off you go. It also means you can spend your childhood traveling, to explain why nobody knows you." Ireland is small; everyone''s cousin''s girlfriend went to school with you. "We could make you foreign, but I don''t want you fucking about with an accent. Mother, Caroline Kelly Madison. She got a job?" "She''s a nurse." "Careful. Think faster; keep an eye out for implications. Nurses need a new license for every country. She trained, but she quit working when you were seven and your family left Ireland. Want brothers and sisters?" "Sure, why not," I said. "I''ll have a brother." There was something intoxicating about this. I kept wanting to laugh, just at the lavish giddy freedom of it: relatives and countries and possibilities

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