Edge-of-your-seat suspense in French’s The Likeness.

Throughout the years, my taste in reading material has vastly changed. I have always been a lover of suspense thrillers and murder mysteries, even subjecting myself to the often dry and monotonous prose of Agatha Christie just so I could cure my most recent case of the whodunits? However, recently, I have been reading books that are more diverse in their subject matter and that still result in me sitting biting my finger nails due to complicated love triangles rather than what the murder weapon was. It was not until I picked up Tana French’s The Likeness that I really got catapulted back into the realm of murder, suspense and intrigue and once more bit my nails down to the quick while waiting for the story to divulge its secrets to me.
As soon as I opened the cover and met the main character, Detective Cassie Maddox, I was hooked. Maddox started out her career on the Murder Squad as an undercover cop; training under a hardcore detective named Frank Mackey. Her first undercover assignment, Operation Vestal, went horribly wrong and she opted to transfer to DV or Domestic Violence. French gives her readers a little bit of information at a time regarding the botched case of Operation Vestal; just enough to keep them interested yet enable them to keep yearning for more.
One afternoon, Cassie gets a phone call from a Murder detective, Sam O’Neill. He tells her there has been a murder and asks her to come down to the crime scene immediately. Cassie hesitates, primarily because anything related to murder is no longer her responsibility. However, she can hear the urgency in his voice and decides to meet him and Mackey at the crime scene. When she arrives, she is prepared by both O’Neill and Mackey and she enters the room where the victim is laying. She gasps, not because scenes like this frazzle her anymore but because what she does find unnerving is the fact that the victim looks just like her. Cassie pulls out the victim’s identification and has to steady herself because not only is the victim a deadringer (no pun intended), but she is Lexie Madison, a fictitious person Mackey and Maddox erected to catch the perpetrators in Operation Vestal. French uses this information to her advantage and keeps her readers expecting more.
We, the readers think that French has thrown all there is to throw at us, but we are sadly mistaken. Frank Mackey, Cassie’s superior while an undercover, has what he considers a brilliant idea, contrary to Sam and Cassie’s belief. Mackey decides that due to the lack of evidence, a suspect and the obvious need to catch the culprit, there is a perfect opportunity for a carefully constructed plan for undercover. He approaches Cassie and Sam and pitches his idea to them. Frank schemes that the victim be believed to be in a coma rather than dead and that Cassie reprise her role as an undercover and become Lexie Madison once again in order to lure the killer to attack again; therefore providing a legitimate suspect. Both Cassie and Sam think this idea is ludicrous, but deep down inside, Cassie is unsatisfied with DV and she yearns to be back in the action. It could be argued that she says she will think about it just to assuage Sam’s fears of putting her in danger, but that she indeed wants to dive headfirst into what could be another chance to be successful.
Once Cassie agrees and everything is settled, Frank makes her endure a rigorous week of training; from making sure she knows all the information about Lexie’s roommates, the people she associates with down to her mannerisms and dress code. After everything has been thoroughly examined and Frank is satisfied with her knowledge, Cassie prepares herself to do her job and do it well. The day that Frank drives her “home” to Whitethorn House after recuperating in the hospital, the readers get a first glimpse of the five roommates. Daniel, a quiet and very smart young man, who inherited the house from his family, the Marches and who loves his friends even though at times it is hard for him to show it; Rafael, who goes by Rafe, attractive with a firecracker personality and a penchant to drink a lot and be promiscuous; Justin, an individual who despite his quick-to-surface anxiety, is full of compassion and love especially for his friends, and Abby, the glue that holds the group together, she is sensible which makes her a well-rounded character who balances all the others’ personalities. These five individuals are what make the story so rich in its plot and details. Each character has traits that the readers can identify with and this fact makes it hard to agree with Frank when he begins to entertain notions of them being viable suspects.
During the course of the novel, French slowly lets us into each person’s world and continues to feed us crucial information that could help us crack the mystery of who killed Lexie Madison. Perhaps, though, the true significance of this novel is the idea of belonging. The fact that even through the murder and mayhem that often ensues as a result of five very different people living together, the idea of feeling like one properly “fits” is very blatant within this book. This is evident by Cassie’s ability to so quickly fall into a life that is so unlike her own and one that welcomes her with open arms, ready to warmly embrace her. During a discussion between Cassie (as Lexie) and Daniel, Daniel describes for Cassie what it he felt like before meeting Abby, Justin and Rafe and it enables the readers to relate because the feeling of wanting to belong is universal. “…I had always felt that I was an observer, never a participant; that I was watching from behind a thick glass wall a people that went about the business of living – and did it with such ease, with a skill that they took for granted and that I had never known. Then Abby reached straight through the glass and caught my hand…I was smiling” (French 354).