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Sunday, September 27, 2009

Book review: The Likeness

10:30 AM / Reviews / 1 Comment

The Likeness by Tana French; Hodder, 2008; 698 pages

About ten pages into The Likeness, I realised it was actually a sequel of sorts to a book I hadn't read, In the Woods. I have an unfortunate tendency to start at the wrong end of a series and work my way backwards, and this tradition shows no sign of abating. In any event, The Likeness focuses on one of In the Woods' secondary characters - Cassie Maddox, a Dublin detective who transferred out of the Murder Squad after suffering a breakdown at the end of the previous novel and now works in Domestic Violence. Prior to joining the Murder Squad, we learn that she also enjoyed a brief stint working undercover, where she and her boss at the time, Frank Mackey, devised an identity, Lexie Madison, which she used while investigating a drug ring. Flash forward to the present day, and she receives a call from Frank, summoning her to a secluded cottage in the countryside and the scene of a fatal stabbing. The victim is a young woman who not only bears such a striking resemblance to Cassie that they could be twins but is also carrying ID which identifies her as Lexie Madison.

Who killed "Lexie"? Why does she bear such a resemblance to Cassie? And how did she come to assume the identity of a woman who never existed? In attempting to answer these questions, Frank hits upon a daring and reckless idea: pretend that Lexie never died but was merely seriously wounded, and have Cassie once again assume Lexie's identity. It seems to work, and once again operating undercover, Cassie immerses herself in Lexie's life - that of a post-graduate student living in a crumbling, ancient mansion with four other students who can only be described as very insular and very weird indeed. Is one of them the killer? Or does it have something to do with the inhabitants of the nearby village, who for some reason are less than hospitable towards the five students?

At nearly 700 pages, The Likeness is a long haul and one that will, I suspect, frustrate a lot of readers by virtue of the fact that it is not the sort of story it initially appears to be and doesn't answer all of the questions it seems to pose. It's impossible, when summarising the basic plot, to make the novel sound like anything other than a crime thriller in the "whodunit" tradition, but in reality apprehending Lexie's killer takes a back seat for a considerable portion of the narrative. It's really more of a character study, not just of Cassie but also Lexie and her four housemates, who to the outside world present an insular, unified front but who, we quickly learn, are slowly beginning to crack and fragment. Who the girl calling herself Lexie was ultimately turns out to be less important than you might think, and her similarity to Cassie - so striking that she is able to fit into the dead girl's life without her friends noticing a difference - is ultimately never explained. At one point Cassie, who narrates the novel in the first person, mentions the old wives' tale that everyone has a mirror image somewhere on Earth, and I get the impression that the author considers this sufficient.

It ultimately doesn't harm the narrative, and indeed on some level adds to the eeriness that permeates throughout. The Likeness is very much a mood piece, playing up the secluded location in which the bulk of the novel takes place, eschewing set-pieces and shocking revelations in favour of a gradual build-up of atmosphere. The old house and its inhabitants come alive on the page, and the dead Lexie, who in a sense never actually existed - at least not in the sense that her housemates believed she did - becomes a continual presence, lingering in the shadows as a constant reminder of the undercurrent of violence that poisons the students' idyllic lifestyle. The book poses some interesting questions about identity: Cassie starts out thinking of Lexie as "hers" and there is an undercurrent of annoyance to the notion that someone "stole" the identity she created, but as the narrative progresses the similarities between herself and this mysterious woman gradually emerge. The concept of reality is also called into question on numerous occasions: we start off thinking of Lexie as some sort of impostor, but we come to see that the life and the identity she built for herself at the house was every bit as "real" as any she might have had in the past (and it becomes clear that, throughout her life, she was a great number of different people), and that the friendship between her and her housemates was nothing if not genuine. (By that same token, the bond Cassie forms with them is every bit as real.)

It's all rather philosophical and I suspect readers looking for something exciting and fast-paced will give up fairly quickly. Myself, I found the first hundred or so pages a bit of a slog but, as I persevered, I found myself being gradually sucked into the compelling and believable world French had created. The Likeness may not be for everyone, but it's a nicely realised mood piece and one that does well to avoid the usual generic trappings of the murder mystery format.

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