Tana French, The Likeness
Featured Book
Dublin is one of the great literary cities, so it is surprising that relatively few mystery writers have chosen it as their setting. But the city’s famed class conflicts, labyrinthine streets and verdant vegetation make the perfect backdrop for crime. The Likeness‘ plot is surreal: Detective Cassie Maddox happens to look exactly like the victim Detective Rob Ryan is investigating. Worse yet, the former friends have been estranged since they solved a brutal child murder (the subject of French’s first novel, Into the Woods). As Cassie goes undercover as the dead girl, Rob must confront his habit of isolating the women he cares about most. Both characters are Wire-style urban officers, but The Likeness reads more like literary fiction than a straight up police procedural.
