Name: Life Sentences
ISBN: 9781847560933

Laura Lippman

When successful memoirist Cassandra Fallows returns home to Baltimore in search of her next best-seller, she starts exploring the story of a childhood friend accused of killing her infant son. But as she digs deeper into her friend's life, Cassandra unearths secrets about her own past that cast her dearest memories in a new light. Now Cassandra must decide if uncovering the truth is worth the pain of revealing what really happened on the forgotten day

Life Sentences

Amy Buckle

This book was a really random buy – I was in a charity shop and saw it under the crime section and thought the blurb sounded pretty good, although I’d never heard of Laura Lippman before. While in the past, random buys have been very successful, this was not. The book is about a writer – Cassandra Fallows – who has had a lot of success with her published memoirs, however her fiction writing doesn’t seem to have much of an audience. While she is thinking of new ideas for her latest book, she stumbles on the story of a old friend from school who was accused of killing her baby son... read the full review here: https://www.amybucklesbookshelf.co.uk...

Author Cassandra Fallows has achieved remarkable success by baring her life on the page. Her two widely popular memoirs continue to sell briskly, acclaimed for their brutal, unexpurgated candor about friends, family, lovers—and herself. But now, after a singularly unsuccessful stab at fiction, Cassandra believes she may have found the story that will enable her triumphant return to nonfiction. When Cassandra was a girl, growing up in a racially diverse middle-class neighborhood in Baltimore, her best friends were all black: elegant, privileged Donna; sharp, shrewd Tisha; wild and worldly Fatima. A fifth girl orbited their world—a shy, quiet, unobtrusive child named Calliope Jenkins—who, years later, would be accused of killing her infant son. Yet the boy's body was never found and Calliope's unrelenting silence on the subject forced a judge to jail her for contempt. For seven years, Calliope refused to speak and the court was finally forced to let her go. Cassandra believes this still unsolved real-life mystery, largely unknown outside Baltimore, could be her next bestseller. But her homecoming and latest journey into the past will not be welcomed by everyone, especially by her former friends, who are unimpressed with Cassandra's success—and are insistent on their own version of their shared history. And by delving too deeply into Calliope's dark secrets, Cassandra may inadvertently unearth a few of her own—forcing her to reexamine the memories she holds most precious, as the stark light of truth illuminates a mother's pain, a father's betrayal . . . and what really transpired on a terrible day that changed not only a family but an entire country.

Life Sentences

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