To the Power of Three

Much as I enjoy Lippman's Tess Monaghan series, I like her non-series books more. They tend to be more complex psychologically, and seriously unpredictable. And so is the case here.

Three girls. Perri and Kat met in kindergarten, and Josie joined them in third grade. The three became a set, all the way into high school. Until they didn't. For some reason a separation happened among the girls, some distance was created. It was unclear why. Then the unthinkable happened. One of the girls brings a gun to school. One girl ends up dead, another critically wounded, a third shot in the foot. But what really happened?

The story winds its way through the history of the girls, the story of another girl, the tragic tale of a car accident, and the show more interest of the guidance counselor. The detective on the case feels it isn't a simple murder-suicide case, as it appears to be, so he bides his time, carefully questioning the last girl and digging through their lives.

Enjoyable and absorbing. I like a book that makes me think about what goes on in characters' heads. show less

Best friends Josie, Perri and Kat go into the bathroom at their high school. Shots are fired. One emerges with a minor injury, one with a life-threatening one, and one is dead. What happened is the mystery at the heart of this riveting thriller.
After What the Dead Know, I was excited to read another thriller by Laura Lippman. This one had wonderful character development – I really got to know the three girls as well as a great many secondary characters (such as the huffy, hypochondriac school secretary, rendered so well in just two short scenes). It was well paced and very readable. BUT – and this is a giant but – the reveal is just lame, which is a big letdown after getting so into the story. It’s hard to recommend any book show more that has an unsatisfactory ending, but for a thriller, it’s especially problematic. If a subpar ending to an otherwise well written and exciting story doesn’t bother you, go for it, but if it does, you might want to steer clear. show less

The story starts with three teenage girls, Perri, Josie, and Kat, locked in a school bathroom with a gun--Kat's dead; Perri has been shot in the face and is not expected to live; Josie's been shot in the foot. It appears that Perri killed Kat, then Perri and Josie struggled over the gun and Josie was shot, then Perri turned the gun on herself.

But the evidence doesn't add up: why are there bloody footprints leading away from the locked door? Where are Josie's shoes? Where are all three girls' cell phones?

The book bounces all over place and time, between different POVs, delving deep into each one, showing the development of the girls' friendship until a year earlier when there's an abrupt break between Perri and Kat. And despite the show more nonlinear progression of the story, it works, for the most part, because the psychological suspense is high and the characters are realistic and familiar (at least to anyone who is, has, or has been a teenage girl).

My only problems were first, that there were a few too many characters, too many POVs. I didn't see a lot of point to teacher Alexa Cunningham's POV, for example--her scenes were very in-depth, but she seemed to be only peripherally involved, if at all, in the events leading up to the shooting.

And then there was the ending. I don't want to spoil it, but it felt flat and anticlimactic. And maybe that was the point--that life doesn't always have a dramatic point. I can accept that--it just doesn't make me love the book.

Overall, I loved the feel of the book: that somewhat dream-hazed, suspenseful, close-up portraits of how 3 teenage girls ended up dead or wounded. If it had been a movie, it would be an artsy one, with lots of out-of-focus close-ups. It's different from my usual reading, which is always a good thing, and I was really immersed in it up until nearly the very end. show less

Why: I try to be open-mind about mysteries and thrillers published in mass paperback if it’s an author I don’t know, but I don’t really succeed. I chose this one because I’ve recently become addicted to HBO’s soulful, gritty show, The Wire, alternately heartbreaking and hilarious. Dennis Lehane and Richard Price have written for the Wire. Lippman is married to the show’s creator/head writer,
David Simon. Now I know you cannot assume one spouse’s talent in an area matches the other (e.g., Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra; Roseanne and Tom Arnold; Whitney and Bobby; Ricky and Lucy Ricardo). But frequently they are in the same league: James Carville and Mary Matalin; Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins; Kurt and Courtney? (But I show more for one think Live Through This is brilliant and I do not think Kurt wrote it. Sexist!)
I digress.
Based on the reading of this one book, Lippman is not in her husband’s league. It is not a bad book, not at all. I turned the pages very quickly. I wanted to know whodunnit and why. It’s just that after years of reading mysteries with literary aspirations and literary fiction that deals in clues and bodies, a straight genre mystery/thriller seems flat. The characters could have come from Central Casting; they had very few insights; they didn’t view the world through apt and original metaphors; and I won’t remember any of their names next week.
I don’t regret the experience, but I’ll be looking for new mystery writing elsewhere. show less

This reminded me of Jodi Picoult. First you know what happens and then the author unravels the motive and story. Interesting and involving it makes you think about the power of popularity and the problems when people feel a need to fit in spaces they shouldn't.
Josie, Perri and Kat are best friends. When one of them comes into school with a gun, one dies, one is seriously injured and another wounded. Who is to blame and why did they do this. It also discusses some of the issues of what happens when best friends drift apart.

Any high school shooting would be enough to shock a community. In this novel, a girl apparently shoots her two best friends and then herself. Evidence at the scene has investigators questioning what really happened between the three classmates while the community seeks to heal and move on after the tragedy. This book, like Lippman's others, is set just outside of Baltimore, Md., and she brings a lot of local flavor to her novels. There are a lot of twists and turns as the reader tries to make sense of the motives behind not only the supposed shooter, but her friends and family. Lippman does a great job of creating several breadcrumb trails for the reader to consider as the story unfolds. The truth behind the incident remains hidden show more until the very end. show less

Three girls have a falling out; one is shot dead, another is gravely wounded, and the third knows more than she's letting on. A detailed examination of adolescent turmoil and high school angst that (for me) did not have the power of the author's other brilliant stand-alones.