What the Dead Know

by Laura Lippman

Ebook, 2009

Library's rating

½

Library's review

In 1970s Baltimore, two sisters aged 12 and 15 go missing. More than 30 years later, a woman shows up who claims to be one of the missing girls, long presumed dead. But is she really who she claims to be? And if she isn't, what kind of dangerous game is she playing?

The woman who now claims to be
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Heather Bethany is established early on as an unreliable narrator in the segments of this book told from her point of view. Balancing that are chapters seen through the eyes of the main police detective investigating her claims, as well as other characters drawn into her orbit. Lippman also goes back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, to show us the girls' lives leading up to their disappearance, as well as how her parents cope or fail to cope in the aftermath. All of the characters through whose eyes we see the story seem legitimate and sympathetic in their own way, and I never had the experience I so often have with multiple-viewpoints narratives of becoming impatient with one or more of the POVs and rushing through those chapters to get back to the "good stuff".

Two things kept me from rating this otherwise imaginative and well-written book higher. The machination that Lippman employs to avoid having the identity secret solved too soon seems unlikely in the extreme, and the ultimate reveal that seemed fairly obvious to me as a reader (which is fine) seemed to never occur to the professional investigators (not so fine). I get that Lippman wanted to maintain the element of shocking surprise as long as possible, but it just made her otherwise savvy characters seem stupid.

This is the first book I've read by Lippman, and I found it rewarding enough to want to read more. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that for a long time I had conflated [[Laura Lippman]] and [[Elinor Lipman]] into the same person, which would confuse me whenever I saw Laura Lippman referenced as a writer of mysteries or suspense novels since the books by Elinor Lippman that I have read could not at all be described that way. I like them both, but they are quite different writers. The more you know ...
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Description

Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML: 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?.… (more)

Awards

Audie Award (Finalist — Thriller/Suspense — 2008)
Anthony Award (Nominee — Novel — 2008)
Macavity Award (Winner — Novel — 2008)
Barry Award (Winner — Novel — 2008)
Quill Award (Winner — Mystery/Suspense/Thriller — 2007)
Spinetingler Award (Winner — 2008)
The Strand Critics Award (Winner — Novel — 2007)
Gumshoe Award (Nominee — Mystery — 2008)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2007-03-13
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