Laura Lippman

Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness? Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been? Why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved Baltimore cop? There isn't a shred of evidence to support her story, and every lead she gives the police seems to be another dead end—a dying, incoherent man, a razed house, a missing grave, and a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart not only by the crime but by the fissures the tragedy revealed in what appeared to be the perfect household. In a story that moves back and forth across the decades, there is only one person who dares to be skeptical of a woman who wants to claim the identity of one Bethany sister without revealing the fate of the other. Will he be able to discover the truth?

A Novel

What the Dead Know

Laura

I didn't particularly want to start with this Laura Lippman book. No, I wanted to read her arguably most famous work, Every Secret Thing, but that book not only had an ugly cover and was more than I was willing to pay and the library copy was falling apart, so I put it down. And then I stumbled upon this book in Goodreads Deals for $1.99 and figured what the hell. That was probably a mistake.

For one thing, the book took me way too long to read for a mere 350-400 page book. But for some reason, I felt as if it was almost a 100 pages longer than it actually was, with the story, a story made for a 300 page if that novel, stretched out like taffy being pulled until you could see through it. 

(Does that metaphor work?) (Who the hell cares, let's just roll with it.)

But let me back up. Explain to you my first thoughts. Which were actually extremely positive. I settled into this book in my favorite chair with a bag of Cape Cod chips nestled in the curl of my elbow. I admired the pretty prose (though there were a few paragraphs I had to read twice) and put the book down after a mere twenty minutes of reading (after which I was dismayed to discover I had only read about 5% of the book) to do something else. I liked the way Lippman set up the opening scene, liked the way she set up the characters, couldn't find anything to complain about really. 

And then, I started reading more and more. And, much in the same way my Megan Abbott experience went, the flaws and patterns in Lippman's writing style began to stick out. For instance, I noticed that Lippman, when describing a person, won't say something like "she was a tall, fat, older woman". No, instead she would say something along the lines of "tall and fat, she was an older woman". Personally, I'm fine with this tactic being used occasionally, just to switch things up a bit, but the amount of times Lippman used this grated on me. I wasn't surprised at all to learn she was a reporter, because it's a very reporter thing to write. But the writing wasn't my biggest annoyance with the novel.

No, there's something, or someone, far worse.

Meet Heather Bethany, the only person in the world to ever be sexually abused. Seriously. I know this probably is the exact wrong thing to say, but she needed to build a bridge and get over herself already. She pissed me off with her constant victimizing of herself, claiming that everyone else was responsible for the fact that she had a shitty life, and even judging others for their problems because she had everything so much worse. I hated her. She reminded me strongly of Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire, but there was something I was able to pity about Blanche, and Blanche wasn't nearly as obnoxious and self-victimizing as Heather. No, Blanche was more annoying than anything else, but not so much that her downfall wasn't sad and horrific. By the end of this novel, I actually wanted something along the same lines as what happened to Blanche happen to Heather, which may make me a horrible person but it's the truth. 

There was also something strongly reminiscent of Lolita in Heather's backstory, but I always felt the same way about Dolores Haze as I did about Blanche, so I couldn't connect the two on that level.

Continue reading this review on my blog here: https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...

Martha F.

midnightjelly

Julie Gibson

One of the most acclaimed and honored writers in the field of crime fiction, Laura Lippman offers readers a gripping tale of deception and delusion, of family wounds and betrayals. Thirty years ago, the Bethany girls, ages eleven and fifteen, disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They never returned, their bodies were never recovered, and only painful questions remain. Now, in the aftermath of a rush-hour hit-and-run accident, a clearly disoriented woman is claiming to be Heather, the younger Bethany sister. Not a shred of evidence supports her story, and every lead she reluctantly offers takes the police to another dead end—a dying, incoherent man; a razed house; a missing grave. But she definitely knows something about that terrible day—and about the shocking fissures that the tragedy exposed in the foundation of a seemingly solid family.

What the Dead Know A Novel

Reviews