The Likeness, Part II

I’m loving The Likeness. Cassie, the undercover detective, has been placed in the shoes of a murder victim, Lexie, who Cassie looks like exactly. While her partners try to use all their powers to discover who Lexie really was on the outside, Cassie lives in an old mansion with Lexie’s four roommates. Having prepared through video clips and any and every fact the cops could give her, Cassie morphs into Lexie and becomes a part of the family, all the while trying to find her killer.

The roommates are very interesting characters – Abby, Daniel, Rafe and Justin. The five are unbelievably close. The mansion holds a mystery (why do all the local residents hate the group so much?), each roommate has a past they keep secret and Cassie has to discretely infiltrate the town, the roommate’s personalities and the house to discover whom Lexie was and why anyone would want her killed.

The book is very engaging, giving the reader hints along the way as to who possibly could be the killer. You fall in love with the roommates, but then you question their motives. It’s also sad to think that they believe their friend is still alive. While trying to remain professional, Cassie does fall into the group easily and starts to like them a lot. All the harder for her to possibly discover one or all of them is up to no good, or if anything, eventually have to tell them their friends is really dead. While it’s fiction, it does make me think about real undercover cops. How hard would it be to pretend to be someone else, especially within a dangerous situation? Always looking over your shoulder, hoping you don’t let on that you’re not who you say you are?

The author, Tana French, has a good way with language, including a lot of detail about the town, the characters, etc., but all in a very engaging way. Even if there’s not much dialogue for several pages, and you’re just sitting inside Cassie’s mind, the paragraphs are engaging and the pages go by quickly.

The Night Gardener, The Likeness and Other Thoughts

I finished reading The Night Gardener last week. It was just OK for me. While I was getting into it somewhat in the middle, the beginning dragged and the ending was a bit of a letdown. There were also a few character arcs that I felt were unnecessary and kind of a waste of space. Pelecanos actually received some pretty good reviews for this book though, so once again, I feel like I’m missing something. Maybe it was the genre that I didn’t like? However, funny thing…

Now I’m reading The Likeness, a story about an undercover detective in Dublin who comes across a body of a woman the spitting image of her. So the cops involved use this “likeness” to their advantage, covering up the murder as an attempted murder and putting Cassie, the detective, in the middle of this woman’s life in attempt to find the real killer. The Likeness is a sequel to In the Woods. B&N didn’t have In the Woods, so I decided to start The Likeness and see if I needed to read its predecessor to understand it. I didn’t. The author, Tana French, gets you up to speed ASAP. The catch is that many years ago, Cassie and her boss create this dead woman’s identity for the purpose of another undercover operation. She’s not real. So, how does she wind up dead in the Irish countryside? Good question. That’s what the characters in The Likeness are trying to figure out. I’m really enjoying the book, so my previous theory that crime fic might be a genre I just don’t enjoy isn’t holding much water.

In actuality, I think I was just going through a funk and The Night Gardener was not a good enough book to get me out of it. I think I got in the funk because I read, and became consumed by, the Twilight series in a little over two weeks time, and anything I picked up after that just wasn’t holding my attention (The Secret of Lost Things – boring; The World Without Us – while very interesting, too dense and not fast enough for what I need right now; and The Night Gardener…). I think The Likeness will help as I’m pretty into it so far – always a good sign.

What about you? Ever get into a reading funk? Does it depress you like it does me? I just felt out of sorts these past few weeks without a good book by my side.