The Likeness by Tana French

I have read all the books in this series and enjoyed them all.  I wasn't able to read them in order but I did start with In The Woods, which is the 1st book in the series.  It's been dubbed the Dublin Murder Squad series although the author states that Ireland has no murder squad, that's her creation.  Tana French is a relatively new author but she's got a real flare for this genre.  I think her plots are creative but even more impressive are her characters.  The Likeness, even more than the others, is packed with characters that are very fleshed out and nuanced. The story line here, briefly, is that Cassie Maddox, a female detective we know from In The Woods is brought back as the main character because she is a double for the young murder victim.  The murder victim has also been living under an alias that was developed for one of Cassie's undercover jobs.  Spooky!  As Cassie is sent in undercover again to find out what happened to our victim, we're introduced to a whole household of finely drawn characters as well as a finely drawn locale.  The writing is definitely superior to what one might typically find in a mystery and I find the commentary on contemporary Ireland interesting although I have no way of knowing if any of it's true. I recommend all the books which are, in order, In The Woods, Faithful Place, The Likeness, and Broken Harbor.  I just finished Broken Harbor and  I had a hard time putting it down.

Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie Macdonald

Again, I'm squeaking in the chunkster category at 508 pages and again this is a book I just picked up at the library sale. Also, again, this book has an interesting locale, in this case, Cape Breton.  The story is a multi-generational one which involves a mixture of  Scottish, Lebanese, and black family members. It covers a couple of generations, and includes WWI, Prohibition, the Depression, and the Harlem Renaissance. At the center of the novel is a very, very, very dysfunctional family which is hiding its dysfunctional secrets.  The is a book in Oprah's Club, so I'm assuming it was very popular because Oprah can make or break a book. There is some good and witty writing  and the main female characters all have a certain pluckiness about them that I enjoyed but overall I found the book just a bit on the dark side and it kind of got me down as I continued to read.  I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading Fall On Your Knees but it did remind me of A Thousand Acres if any of you are familiar with that book.