The Likeness by Tana French

Tana French astonished critics and readers alike with her mesmerizing debut novel, In the Woods. Now both French and Detective Cassie Maddox return to unravel a case even more sinister and enigmatic than the first. Six months after the events of In the Woods, an urgent telephone call beckons Cassie to a grisly crime scene. The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used. Suddenly, Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more importantly, who is this girl? A disturbing tale of shifting identities,The Likeness firmly establishes Tana French as an important voice in suspense fiction.

This is a fantastic book! The idea is so insane and so developed and well executed that this is probably one of my top favorites so far this year.

For one; undercover detective with a legit doppleganger who is living as her created alias from a past case???? YES! That in itself is interesting!

I like Tana French as a writer, so I was pretty excited to see how this story turned out.

The only thing that upset me most about this book is how it's not a sequel to In The Woods. I was so disappointed with how In The Woods turned out that I was praying that this book would allow me to find out what happened. But alas, it's a completely different storyline just keeping the same characters.

Other than that, it's crazy how the story turns out. When Cassie, gets the call that her alias from a past case is found dead, and legit looks EXACTLY like her, you have no idea where this is going. At first, I thought it was a ploy against her from the past case where she was sing her alias as an undercover student at a high school trying to bust a drug ring. But it's completely different. The girl is found stabbed and dead in a broken down shack in the woods.

Cassie goes undercover as Alexandra (AKA Lexie), and goes to live within the household of the girl and her 4 best friends, not only to learn of the events that led up to the girls death, but also on a personal level, to find out who the heck she was and how she came to have her past alias.

You may be thinking, but the girl's dead...WELL. They don't tell anyone that the girl actually died and just say that she was pretty much in a coma from blood loss and was able to be revived in the hospital. Her friends all thought that it was some joke and it couldn't be true, they were convinced that she was dead. BUT, miraculously this girl shows up who looks exactly like her and is welcomed back home and the friends treat it like a bad dream.

This is a well though out plot and I enjoyed it tremendously. I must say that at some time's it was predictable, but really, it's not so predictable you figure out everything but just hints and ideas.

I'd give this a 4/5. I still am very sad it's nothing compared to In The Woods as far as the storyline, but on it's own it stands as a good read.

BUT GOSH. I STILL WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IN THE WOODS!! UGH