3M Blog

Virtual Book Tour – August 10 – September 11

August 10 – RABT Book Tours – Kick Off

August 11 – Rajivs reviews – Review

August 12 – Lilyana Shadowlyn – Spotlight

August 13 – Literary gold – Excerpt

August 14 – Teatime and books – Spotlight

August 16 – So Many Books – Spotlight

August 17 – Saph’s books – Spotlight

August 18 – Jazzy book reviews – Interview

August 19 – Nanas book reviews – Spotlight

August 20 – Momma and Her Stories – Excerpt

August 21 – Momma says to read or not to read – Spotlight

August 23 – My Reading Addiction – Interview

August 24 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog – Spotlight

August 25 – Texas Book Nook – Review

August 26 – Sylv Net – Spotlight

August 27 – A Life Through Books – Interview

August 28 – Book corner news and reviews – Spotlight

August 30 – Novel News Network – Review

August 31 – Book junkiez – Spotlight

September 1 – The Faerie Review – Spotlight

September 2 – The Indie Express – Review

September 3 – Crossroad reviews – Spotlight

September 4 – Bookish Kelly – Spotlight

September 6 – Sandra’s Book Club – Review

September 7 – On a Reading Bender – Review

September 8 – Dina Raes write stuff – Spotlight

September 9 – Our Town Book Reviews – Spotlight

September 10 – The Avid Reader – Interview

September 11 – RABT Reviews – Wrap Up

The Likeness by Tana French

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Tana French is one of the best crime writers working today. Her prose is stunningly good, complex yet eminently readable. However, no one can write well enough to make a weak plot plausible.
French’s scintillating prose was the only thing that led me to finish this very poorly plotted story. I knew the plot wasn’t going to work in the first 100 pages, and sadly, the next 500 bore out that conclusion. I expect the great length of the book was because the author used every artifice at her command to make the story work, but it just didn’t happen.
Cassie Maddox is a former Dublin Murder Squad member and former undercover policewoman. When a woman who looks just like her is found murdered, Cassie goes undercover to find her killer. Not only was the vic Cassie’s double, she had also taken the same name that Cassie used as an undercover. Huh? Is your credulity strained yet? Just wait.
Cassie goes to live with the victim’s roommates, a collection of oddball college students who live as a family in an old mansion in the outskirts of a rural village outside Dublin. She manages to convince four people who knew her doppelganger intimately that she is their roomie, successfully posing as a PhD student in English literature at Trinity College, even though she has only a BA. Her housemates are all English grad students too, yet do not see through her.
Cassie wears a microphone the whole time and carries a revolver under her clothes, which nobody spots. She goes for an hour walk late each evening so she can sit in a tree and have long phone convos with her police colleagues. Her housemates suspect nothing.
In the copy I read, it took 500 pages for the situation to come to a head. I frankly don’t see how any competent developmental editor would have allowed this. The ending was expected, lackluster and unbelievable.
Tana French’s prose is always a joy, and is the only reason I gave this book as many as three stars. It’s a shame such great writing had to be wasted on such a poor story.



View all my reviews