What the Dead Know

Two cars collide on a Baltimore freeway. One flips off the road into a ditch. The other continues to a familiar exit. Its driver leaves the car and continues on foot. It doesn't take long for the police to find her. When they do, she startles them by claiming to be the younger of the two Bethany girls who disappeared from this Baltimore neighborhood on Easter Saturday in 1975. Is she telling the truth? That's what everyone wants to find out -- current police officers, the retired policeman who worked the case 30 years ago, a social worker, and a high-powered attorney.

Laura Lippman patiently spins the story, doling out pieces a little at a time. Reading it was a bit like working a jigsaw puzzle -- you keep finding and connecting pieces show more that match, until eventually they all join in a complete picture. I had plenty of time to think about what might have happened leading up to the disappearance of the Bethany sisters, and to wonder why the victim of a crime might remain silent for so many years. The story was compelling. For me, the primary drawback was the amount of bad language. The speakers (primarily policemen) seemed to know and use variations of only one word. I think that even readers who aren't bothered by bad language per se might find the vocabulary excessively repetitive. show less

This excellent novel about two missing girls kept me guessing all the way to the powerful and riveting conclusion. Lippman is a wonderful writer, and I found myself unable to put this book down until I read it all the way through. The tragic tale of two girls who disappeared one afternoon and the effect that disappearance had on the lives of those around them is wrapped up the gradual unraveling of the truth behind that afternoon, and the many shadings of guilt that surround Heather and Bethany's disappearance. Despite bouncing between perspectives and time, this novel never loses momentum; Lippman keeps the tension building as the story rockets toward the truth. Highly recommended.

Oh dear. This was quite good. Chilling. I can't remember the last time I read a mystery that was this haunting, torturous, twisty, intriguing. It wasn't quite as edgy with the literary merit of the best of Tana French's novels but it had me on the edge of my seat nonetheless. There is something about cold cases, especially missing children, that is just so horrifying, mystifying.

Anyway, the tween and teen Bethany sisters - Heather and Sunny - go missing from the mall without a trace one afternoon in 1975 never to be heard from again. No clues, no ransom, no bodies until the present day start of our novel when a middle-aged woman leaves the scene of a hit and run and then cops to being Heather Bethany when caught and questioned. The show more story unfolds from there with flashbacks to the day of the disappearance, and slices of life of the girls' parents post-disappearance that are well rendered and oh-so-sad.

About the only criticism I have is our mystery woman, the alleged Heather Bethany's character. Perhaps it was purposeful on the part of the author, but she was wholly unconvincing as a 40-something woman; she behaved more like the teenager she was when she disappeared. I wish her character had been better drawn.

I thought I was about through with this genre until I read this novel. Again, not enduring literature but a compelling and affecting read for those who like mysteries with more substance and less violence and chase scenes. Comparisons with Tana French, Morag Joss, Stuart O'Nan come to mind. Highly recommended. show less

This is the third in a masterful set of standalones that examine the effects of crime on those involved - all of them adolescent girls. In Every Secret Thing Lippman drew a taut and trembling relationship between two women who, as girls, killed a baby in what seemed an inexplicable act of horror. In To the Power of Three the police try to figure out what led to a school shooting. (I haven’t read that one yet - much as I’m tempted, I’m worried it will cause painful flashbacks to high school that will be too much for me to handle.) Here, we’re faced with a woman who holds secrets like a poker player, bluffing all the time. She claims to be one of the pair of girls who went missing at the mall in 1975, and she knows enough details show more to be plausible - yet the police sense something is off in her story. One by one, Lippman deals out the cards in flashbacks, but we are never quite sure which ones are important and how they’ll fit together. Unlike Janet Maslin, I wasn’t at all surprised by the “aha! moment” - but I was interested in seeing the human outlines of the crime slowly emerge.

It’s refreshing to read a work of crime fiction that doesn’t focus on the shock and drama of a crime, but rather on the people whose lives are changed by it, along with all the little things that led up to it. As we read, we piece together many different scenarios, all them dreadful, but in the end the reality of the crime is bluntly ordinary, and all the more tragic for it.

These things happen. And you finish the book sadder and wiser. show less

I don't know how I missed this book when it came out a few years ago. I wish I had read this book before I read Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," because I enjoyed this one much more than "Gone Girl." "What the Dead Know" by Laura Lippman is the story of two sisters who go missing in the mid 1970's. In the early 2000's, a woman is found after a car accident mumbling the name of one of the sisters. The mystery of who this woman is, and what is her connection to the missing sisters. I loved how the author used the format of an unreliable narrator (the woman - is she lying?). This made the whole book questionable for me, in a good way! Rarely do I sit and read a book very quickly, and I did with this one. It was a page turner that I was hooked show more on. My only complaint is that several of the secondary characters didn't develop much. I would have loved more of Infante's back story and more about that character in general. show less

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 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 show more 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 ... show less

A woman fresh from a car accident claims she’s a long-lost Bethany girl; one of a pair of sisters missing some 30 years and presumed dead. Her story is violent and shaming and told sporadically, reluctantly. Because of its nature, we hardly dare question her credibility and that’s why the novel works.

Nicely told with just enough flashback to give us the time and place before the crime. Mom and dad are more than just parents. The girls are sisters, but as different as strangers. Lippman tantalizes us with details that satisfy our prurience, but doesn’t allow it to spill over into repugnance. She gives us various voices, perspectives and points in time (the detail of the purse was especially effective since I think I had one just show more like it). Is this grown woman really the missing child from decades earlier? Does her personality match up or is she too damaged by her ordeal? The case has been open for so long it’s on its 3rd or 4th lead investigator. The latest has no emotional ties to things and eyes everyone in the light of suspicion instead of going for the easy clear. He thinks he’ll have ultimate proof when he locates the mother; DNA has come a long way in the last 30 years. The fact that the Behtany girls are adopted takes the wheels off the bus though and other proof has to come to the fore. show less