Books like “The Likeness”

What to read after “The Likeness” by Tana French: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “The Likeness”

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1
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Dual Identity
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears from a rented house and her husband Nick becomes the prime suspect. Two narrators tell very different versions of the same marriage.
2
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Dual Identity
A husband and wife in a Florida suburb look like an ordinary couple, but they share a secret pastime that has to stay hidden. As the double life grows harder to manage, the narrator finds the person he knows best is the one he trusts least.
3
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith · 1955
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Tom Ripley, a poor young man in New York, is sent to Italy by a rich shipbuilder to bring home his son Dickie. Instead Tom is drawn into Dickie's comfortable world and, when it is threatened, does whatever it takes to keep it.
4
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
Child psychologist Anna Fox lives alone, unable to leave her home, and spends her days watching her neighbours through a camera. When she sees something in the house across the street, no one believes her, and she is left to work out whether the danger is real or in her mind.
5
A Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
As a child she helped put her father away for killing girls. Twenty years later she is a therapist about to marry, when young women in her town begin to disappear again and the old case follows her into the present.
6
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
Years after her mother and sisters were killed and her teenage brother was convicted, Libby Day is approached by a group of true-crime enthusiasts who believe he is innocent. Short of money, she agrees to ask questions, and the answers force her to revisit what she remembers of that night.
7
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
Rachel rides the same commuter train every day and invents stories about a couple she sees from the window, until she learns the woman has vanished. Her memory of the night in question is full of gaps, and she cannot tell how much of what she believes is real.
8
Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk · 1996
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Dual Identity
Insomniac and alienated, a nameless narrator meets a charismatic soap salesman named Tyler Durden and helps found an underground fight club that grows into something far larger. As the club spreads, the narrator's life and sense of self begin to come apart.
9
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted tells a stranger that he wishes his cheating wife were dead. Lily calmly offers to help him plan it. As their murder scheme takes shape in Boston, each of the narrators hides a past the others know nothing about.
10
Before I Go to Sleep
S. J. Watson · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
Each morning Christine wakes with no memory of her life, and each day her husband explains who she is. When she starts a diary at a doctor's suggestion, she finds entries in her own hand that contradict what he tells her, and that suggest her past holds a crime.
11
Then She Was Gone
Lisa Jewell · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
Ten years after her teenage daughter disappeared, a mother learns what happened and tries to rebuild her life. Meeting a new partner and his young daughter, she is unsettled by small resemblances to her lost child, which reopen the case.
12
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
Through letters to her estranged husband, Eva looks back on the life of their son Kevin and on the years she struggled to feel any bond with him. She tries to understand the person he became, and to face her own part in what happened.