This book can be read as a stand-alone but follows very nicely on from In the Woods, the first novel of the Dublin Murder Squad series. The author’s voice remains the same and this is another tale told in the first person, only this time it is from the point of view of Detective Cassie Maddox.
A man walking his dog finds a body and calls the police. The victim looks very much like Detective Cassie Maddox and she is persuaded to work undercover to find the killer.
I liked the tension of this novel and what psychological effects working undercover had on Cassie. I liked the dynamics of Cassie living alongside the suspects and how she grew to like them, making you wonder about the Stockholm syndrome.
As the story progressed I wondered who the killer was and if Cassie had been sent on a wild goose chase. I liked how the other detectives interviewed people and the games they played to wear suspects down. There were some nice rivalries explored between urban and rural people. The importance of having close friends and a secure home was given centre stage with a lot of philosophy to back this up.
I liked the writing style of this novel, it was exactly the same as with In the Woods. Reading The Likeness straight after the first novel was very cosy for me. The change of central detective made no difference to me and I still felt part of the team. I found this novel very engaging and the story was great to run along with. For a crime novel, this was at the character driven end of the scale. Solving the case was not by specialist technical police work but by building strong relationships between people to understand what makes them tick.
I got a lot of pleasure from reading The Likeness and it gets the top score of 5 stars from me. I think it would make a great television drama.
No comments:
Post a Comment