It shouldn't work. The premise is, frankly, ridiculous. A detective finds a murder victim who looks exactly like her—not just a passing resemblance, but a literal mirror image—and then decides to go undercover as the dead girl to catch the killer? It sounds like a bad soap opera plot or a cheesy 1990s thriller starring Ashley Judd. But The Likeness by Tana French isn’t interested in being a standard police procedural. It’s a gothic, claustrophobic, and deeply weird psychological study that has managed to stay relevant nearly two decades after it first hit shelves.
I remember reading this for the first time and thinking that French was taking a massive gamble. In the world of "hard-boiled" crime fiction, realism is usually king. Yet here we are, following Cassie Maddox into a crumbling old house in rural Ireland called Whitethorn House, where she lives with four strangers who think she’s their best friend, Lexie Madison. It’s a fever dream. It’s intense. Honestly, it’s probably the most divisive book in the Dublin Murder Squad series because it asks you to suspend your disbelief until it snaps.
But if you can get past the "twin" trope, you’re in for something much darker than a simple whodunit.
The Impossible Hook: Why We Buy Into the Premise
Most people come to this book after reading In the Woods, French’s debut. That book was about trauma and the things we forget. The Likeness by Tana French is about the things we want to become.
Cassie Maddox, our protagonist, is drifting. She’s left the Murder Squad after the devastating events of the previous book and is tucked away in Domestic Violence, trying to feel normal again. Then her former boss and mentor, Frank Mackey—a man who is basically the human embodiment of a moral grey area—shows up with a body. The girl has been stabbed in a cottage in Glenskehy. She has Cassie’s face. She’s using an alias, Lexie Madison, that Cassie herself invented years ago for an undercover stint.
It’s a "sliding doors" moment.
French uses this impossible coincidence to explore the fluidity of identity. Undercover work isn't just a job in this novel; it’s a pathology. Cassie doesn’t just "play" Lexie; she starts to prefer being Lexie. The house, the people, the communal dinners—it all feels more real to her than her actual life. This is where the book shifts from a crime novel into something closer to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. You’ve got these five postgraduate students living in a bubble of intellectualism and shared rituals, isolated from the modern world. They are pretentious. They are obsessive. They are also deeply loving in a way that feels cult-like and dangerous.
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The Whitethorn House Dynamic
The inhabitants of the house—Daniel, Justin, Rafe, and Abby—are the heart of the mystery. They are "The Five."
- Daniel: The leader. He’s the one who inherited the house. He’s brilliant, old-fashioned, and holds the group together with a terrifyingly firm grip.
- Abby: The nurturer. She’s the one who sees the cracks but chooses to paper over them with domesticity.
- Justin and Rafe: The outliers who provide the friction necessary to keep the plot moving.
Living with them, Cassie/Lexie has to navigate a minefield of inside jokes and shared history. One wrong word and she’s dead. The tension isn't just about getting caught by the police; it’s about the emotional betrayal of the group. You start to feel for these suspects. You start to want Cassie to stay in the house forever, even though you know a girl is dead and one of these people almost certainly killed her.
Why the Critics (and Some Readers) Struggle with It
Let’s be real: the "doppelgänger" thing is a hard pill to swallow. In a 2008 interview, Tana French herself acknowledged that the setup is "a massive, whopping great coincidence." If you are a reader who needs every beat of a story to be grounded in forensic reality, you might hate this book.
The investigation isn't really about DNA or fingerprints. It’s about vibes. It’s about the psychology of the room.
There’s also the length. At over 600 pages, The Likeness by Tana French takes its sweet time. It lingers on descriptions of the damp Irish countryside and the specific way the light hits the kitchen table during Sunday brunch. For some, this is atmospheric bliss. For others, it’s a slog. I’d argue that the length is necessary. You need to feel the weight of the time Cassie spends there to understand why she starts to lose her mind. You need to see the repetition of their lives to understand why she would want to trade her lonely apartment for this beautiful, haunted communal existence.
Comparison to the Dublin Murder Squad Series
Where does this sit in the broader context of French’s work?
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- In the Woods: The haunting debut. More focused on childhood trauma.
- The Likeness: The psychological outlier. The "Donna Tartt" book.
- Faithful Place: A gritty, family-focused masterpiece. (Many think this is her best).
- Broken Harbor: A bleak look at the Irish economic crash and mental health.
Unlike the later books, which feel very grounded in the social realities of Ireland, The Likeness feels like a fairytale. It’s a story about a girl who goes into a dark woods (or a dark house) and finds a version of herself. It’s less about "the system" and more about the soul.
The Ending: A Bitter Pill to Swallow
Without spoiling the specific "who" of the murder, the ending of the book is famously unsatisfying for those who want a clean "case closed" feeling. Tana French doesn't do "happily ever after." She does "how do we live with what we’ve done?"
The resolution of the mystery is almost secondary to the dissolution of the group. The tragedy isn't just that Lexie died; it’s that the dream of Whitethorn House was always a lie. It was a fragile ecosystem that couldn't survive the intrusion of the real world—or the intrusion of a detective with a badge and a broken heart.
When the truth comes out, it’s messy. It’s quiet. It’s devastatingly human.
Actionable Insights for Readers and Writers
If you’re picking up this book for the first time, or if you’re a writer trying to learn from French’s style, here are a few things to keep in mind.
For the Reader:
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- Context is key. Read In the Woods first. While you can read this as a standalone, Cassie's motivations only make sense if you know what she went through with Rob Ryan in the first book.
- Ignore the logistics. Don't get hung up on the "how" of the resemblance. Treat it as a magical realism element rather than a forensic one.
- Watch the background characters. French is a master of giving supporting characters—like the local villagers or the other detectives—just enough life to make the world feel lived-in.
For the Writer:
- Voice is everything. Cassie’s narration is what sells the book. She is unreliable, not because she lies to the reader, but because she lies to herself.
- Atmosphere as a character. The house itself has a mood. Use your setting to reflect the internal state of your protagonist.
- Embrace the slow burn. Don't be afraid to let your characters just be for a while. The tension in The Likeness comes from the silence between the dialogue, not just the action.
Final Verdict: Is It Worth the Hype?
Absolutely.
The Likeness by Tana French remains a high-water mark for the "literary thriller." It proves that you can take a trope that should be relegated to a bargain-bin DVD and turn it into a profound meditation on loneliness and the masks we wear. It’s a book that stays with you. You’ll find yourself thinking about those dinners at Whitethorn House long after you’ve finished the final page. You might even find yourself wishing, just for a second, that you could disappear into someone else's life, too.
To get the most out of your experience with Tana French, follow these steps:
- Start with "In the Woods": You need the emotional foundation of Cassie's character before diving into her identity crisis.
- Research the "Big House" literary tradition: Understanding the Irish history of the "Big House" (typically Anglo-Irish estates) adds a layer of social commentary to the setting of Whitethorn House.
- Listen to the audiobook: The narration by Heather O'Neill captures the lyrical, rhythmic quality of French's prose perfectly, making the long descriptive passages feel like music.
- Track the "Dublin Murder Squad" timeline: Realize that characters from this book pop up in later novels like Faithful Place and The Trespasser, creating a rich, interconnected world.
The beauty of French's writing is that it rewards deep attention. This isn't a book to skim while you're at the airport; it's a book to sink into on a rainy weekend when you're feeling a little bit lost yourself.