Paramount Pictures has picked up the feature rights to two Tana French novels for adaptation. In the Woods, French’s 2008 debut novel, is part police procedural and part psychological thriller and charts the investigation into the murder of a 12-year-old girl in Dublin, Ireland. The sequel, The Likeness, features the same detective, Cassie Maddox, investigating the death of a young woman who is a dead ringer for Cassie herself, allowing the detective to assume the woman’s identity as a grad student at Trinity College.

The Likeness was acquired for adaptation by Stephanie Savage (Gossip Girl). She will produce with Fake Empire partner Josh Schwartz. As reported by Deadline, the duo purchased the book rights through their discretionary fund at Paramount. Fake Empire has set up five projects thus far, with its first film Fun Size to be released late next year.  Hit the jump for synopses for both books.

In the Woods

When Katy Devlin, a 12-year-old girl from Knocknaree, a Dublin suburb, is found murdered at a local archeological dig, Det. Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, must probe deep into the victim's troubled family history. There are chilling similarities between the Devlin murder and the disappearance 20 years before of two children from the same neighborhood who were Ryan's best friends. Only Maddox knows Ryan was involved in the 1984 case. [Amazon]

The Likeness

Detective Cassie Maddox returns 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? [Amazon]