Every Secret Thing

Sure, there aren't many characters to like in this novel, but I'm not so simple as to not be able to enjoy and appreciate what an author does because there are no sunshine and puppies. If you want a nice little novel about people doing nice little things (yawn) look elsewhere. If you aren't afraid the the dark side of human nature and can enjoy a novel about people you wouldn't necessarily want over for dinner, you could do worse than this book. I found it an interesting look into what women are capable of. So often we want to deny women the ability to be vicious or dangerous, but this novel puts them on equal footing with men in those departments.

Overall I enjoyed the story about these fractured people and how their lives intersected. show more Helen disturbed me the most and I think the narrator did a great job with her character. Her low self-esteem manifested itself in such bizarre ways that seemed to contradict and then override any maternal instinct she might have posessed. Alice, her daughter, was drawn a bit heavy-handed to be completely believable and I wasn't surprised to see her true self emerge in the end. Ronnie, while not always a sympathetic character, earned those feelings in the end, at least from me. Cynthia was a woman driven by her dark side just as much as Helen was. Nancy wasn't so clearly drawn as the rest. She kept harping on her former need for attention, but it didn't really come through since we were beyond its time frame. While it's not her best work, I think Lippman wrote an unusual story well. show less

3.5 stars

This book was a test of Lippman for me. I've read a few books by her lately. While I've enjoyed the read, I've had 2 main complaints: everything ties up too neatly at the end; those complicit in wrongdoing don't seem to carry the weight or be held accountable.

So I wanted to see how this worked out. Lippman writes wonderfully, developing characters, drawing out suspense, weaving lives together. But if the climax will always be unsatisfying, I couldn't see investing in her anymore.

Well, this book passes the test. The story is dark & haunting - you just know there's so much that happened that has never seen the light of day. The suspense is delicious - is what's happening now related to long ago? just how wrong did they get it show more last time? And the payoff is satisfying: though much is still hidden from them all, there are some who see the true culprits, & they'll keep watch from now on.

I look forward to getting into the rest of Laura Lippman's catalog now. show less

This was the first book I've read by this author. She writes the Tess Monaghan mystery series, but this title is a standalone. It's well written and in some ways reminded me of Minette Walters with the way it delved into characters, offering insights from the past to explain the present. At its heart, it's the story of how the past can come back to haunt the present and the powerless of some people to change things for the better.

Alice and Ronnie were eleven years old when they happened across a baby in a stroller in front of a house. Convinced the baby had been abandoned, they took her, and were blamed for Olivia Barnes' death. Now, 7 years later, they've been released from "kid prison" to start their lives over. But when another child show more disappears, suspicion falls on the two young women.

But it's not just Alice and Ronnie's lives that have been altered. There is the detective who, as a police cadet enlisted in the search for Olivia Barnes, found the baby's body and is now one of the investigators on the current missing child case. There is also Alice's public defender lawyer who still thinks Alice got a raw deal, and Alice's mother, who seems to have perfected her own brand of denial. And finally, there is Olivia's mother. Cynthia Barnes never got over her baby's death, and her need for vengeance propels much of the action and the inevitability of the conclusion.

I enjoyed the book a lot, but felt at times, a bit manipulated. Lippman is careful to not tell us any detail before she's ready for us to know it. Yet by the end of the book, I felt as if I knew each character intimately and that's due to Lippman's engrossing, engaging prose. If you like a suspenseful page turner, you'll likely find it here. show less

This was Laura Lippman’s first stand-alone mystery, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a slow-building, sneaky mystery. We know from the start that something terrible happens to baby Olivia Barnes and that Alice and Ronnie were responsible, but the details leak out slowly, drip by drip. The best part of the book is that you’re never quite sure whose side you should be on. Is Alice as innocent as she seemed? Is Ronnie the sociopath she first seemed to be? What did Alice’s mother have to do with it? Why is the public defender so invested? Even the victim’s mother, Cynthia Barnes, isn’t particularly likeable. In fact, she’s quite bitchy throughout most of the book. You want to excuse her behavior, but is there a point where show more enough is enough?

There are some quite surprising twists in the story, and that’s what makes it extra special for me. It’s hard for me to find a book with a plot that surprises me. This just cements Lippman’s place on my "Damn, She’s Good" list. show less

From Amazon:

Two little girls banished from a neighborhood birthday party find an abandoned stroller with an infant inside on an unfamiliar Baltimore street. What happens next is shocking and terrible, causing the irreparable devastation of three separate families.
Seven years later, Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller, now eighteen, are released from “kid prison” to begin their lives over again. But the secrets swirling around the original crime continue to haunt the parents, the lawyers, the police, and all the adults in Alice and Ronnie’s lives. And now another child has disappeared, under freakishly similar circumstances.

My Thoughts:

The story is narrated from multiple viewpoints, including those of a pair of now teenage girls, just show more released from juvenile detention after serving seven-year sentences for their parts in the kidnapping and death of a baby. At first, we feel sympathetic toward poor Alice, the "good" girl whose life was ruined by the inexplicable actions of the "bad" Ronnie, but as the story goes on, our sympathies are drawn more and more to Ronnie as the secrets of what happened seven years before, and what is happening now, are revealed. This is a gripping story, full of tension and emotion with moments of sadness and moments of humor. A great book by a great writer. show less

Two eleven year old girls are asked to leave a birthday party after one of them gets angry and accidentally hits the birthday girl’s mother. They are allowed to leave without a ride home and without any adult supervision. On their way home, they spot a baby in a carriage, unsupervised, outside the closed door of a house. The girls take the baby and later say that they took the baby to protect it and keep it safe. The problem is that the baby is dead. Did one of the girls kill it, or both, or did it die naturally of SIDS? Only the girls know the truth and they blame each other. Seven years later, babies are going missing again. Is it one or both of the girls, just recently home from juvenile detention, as the mother of the deceased show more baby thinks, or is it someone else?

Every Secret Thing is a really good mystery with lots of twists. Some of the twists I anticipated in advance, but others took me by surprise. It is told through a variety of the characters’ views, sometimes switching from one to another too fast for my taste, but it does add more detail to the story. I hate to say it, but I didn’t really like any of the characters in Every Secret Thing, but I’m not sure Lippman wants the reader to like them. I did kind of like the detective, Nancy, but she wasn’t really well-developed enough to gain much investment from me. I didn’t trust either of the two girls, and I really didn’t like the mother of the baby that was killed in the beginning. She just seemed self-important, judgmental, and bossy. Alice’s mother seemed odd, and I wasn’t sure what to think about Alice’s lawyer, but I didn’t really like her either. The reporter obviously didn’t care about anyone other than herself and I never understood what had caused her to become stuck at such a low-level position to begin with. Despite the character issues, Every Secret Thing keeps you guessing, making you question what you think you already know. It had me racing to the end to find out if my suspicions were accurate or not. It was a thrilling ride and I was itching to know what the truth really was.

I recommend this one, with just a little complaint that the character POV change was too abrupt at times. show less

One of the more disturbing stories Lippman has to offer. It focuses on two girls who were sent to juvenile detention centers for killing a baby. We meet Nancy, a young detective with something to prove. We also meet the mother of the baby who was kidnapped, then killed. We meet the mothers of the girls, along with other peripheral characters.

The two girls, Alice and Ronnie, are released from detention on their eighteenth birthdays, seven years after being sent away. Both return to their homes in the same community. Alice has gained weight, is now large and resentful. After all, she did not actually kill the baby, she has continually pointed out. Ronnie is the one with the temper, the "bad girl" who started it all. Alice's defense lawyer show more suggests walking as a form of exercise that might help Alice with her weight. She takes the hint and spends hours on the streets every day. Meanwhile, Ronnie finds a job at a donut shop, where nobody knows her. In fact, few people know who the girls are because privacy laws protected their identities.

Then the unthinkable happens. A three-year-old child is kidnapped. It is the third or fourth "disappearance" since the two came home, but the others had all been found within hours. This time the child is not found. The mother of the baby who was killed insists that the police focus on the two girls. She points out that the three-year-old looks remarkably like her own second child. Do the girls have it in for her?

Is anything as it seems? Perhaps not. I was pretty much on the edge of my seat reading this, hoping for a resolution that did not involve the girls, hoping for answers that absolved them at last. I won't tell you if my hopes were dashed or not. Wouldn't be fair, would it? show less