I'd Know You Anywhere

"It was the crime that people remembered, not the victim."
Laura Lippman, "I'd Know You Anywhere"

When I started reading Laura Lippman's 2010 novel, I wondered how she was going to make a story -- and knowing Lippman, a riveting story -- when the crimes in question (the abduction and murder of a series of teenage girls) happened years before and the killer sits on death row awaiting his execution. I needn't have worried, for the author pulls it off beautifully, and without relying too heavily on flashbacks.

The key to Lippman's story is that one of Walter Bowman's victims survived. Elizabeth Lerner, now Eliza Benedict, is married and has two children of her own, including a troubled daughter about the same age as she was when she stumbled show more upon Walter burying one of his victims. He grabbed her and took her with him on his travels. Trying to survive, she cooperated in every way, even to the point of not attempting to escape when she had the chance and aiding in the abduction of another girl, Holly Tackett. Her testimony helped put Walter on death row, where he has been for the past 20 years. But now he has found her again and hopes he can manipulate her as did years before, this time to save his life.

Eliza, who had thought her role in Walter Bowman's murder spree had long been forgotten, finds herself not just pressured by Walter but also caught between two women with opposing agendas. Trudy Tackett, Holly's mother, still blames Eliza for living when her own daughter died, and she wants to make sure Eliza does nothing to keep Walter from his appointment with death. Meanwhile Barbara, a woman who devotes herself to helping violent convicts, pushes Eliza to go along with Walter's scheme. In an author's note at the end of the novel, Lippman writes, "I did my best to make sure that every point of the (death penalty) triangle -- for, against, confused -- was represented by a character who is recognizably human." That she does very well, and all three women are flesh-and-blood characters you can understand, whether you agree with them or not. show less

Laura Lippman’s newest novel, [I’d Know You Anywhere], stretched my boundaries of suspendable disbelief. A lot of crime and thriller fiction these days tries to ground itself in reality but still manages to miss the mark by a good bit. The problem is the attempt at mirroring reality while still trying to create a sensational and page-turning experience.

Eliza Benedict was the last of Walter Bowman’s victims, or the first, depending on how you look at it. Walter never let any of his other victims, except Eliza, live after he raped them. Eliza changes her name and moves on with her life, at least she appears to. Twenty years later, Eliza receives a letter from Walter who is awaiting his execution. Eliza begins a correspondence with show more Walter, over the mail and the telephone, culminating in a final face-to-face visit, as she tries to make sense of how she survived.

Lippman has done a disservice to crime victims with this novel. The idea that the best way to handle a murderer and rapist is to give him what he wants is a huge mistake. Lippman sets her plot up in a way that makes Eliza’s choice to correspond with her attacker seem reasoned and logical when it is least reasonable option. I won’t quibble with folks who’d argue that there are other women who might make the same choice, but such an argument only proves my point about what a disservice Lippman has done with this novel.

The final offense (BEWARE A SPOILER) is that Lippman ends her novel with a final magnanimous confession from a man she has given all of the stereotypical sociopathic characteristics.

If you read this one, you’re really going to have to turn your mind completely off.

1 ½ bones! show less

Buried secrets are harshly exposed in Laura Lippman’s I’d Know You Anywhere. The fast paced novel opens with the narrator Eliza awaiting the execution of her former captor, Walter. The story then alternates between modern day and 1985, the year Eliza was abducted. Since the kidnapping, Eliza has tried to disappear and start over. But Walter has managed to find her and pull her back into his twisted world.

Creepy on so many levels, the novel manages to separate itself from other formulaic thrillers. Lippman’s heroine is constantly hinting there may be more to the summer then we or she knows. And the few incorporated first person passages told by the decidedly menacing are unshakably gruesome. Lippman also presents the perspectives show more from Walter’s enemies and advocates thereby increasing the novels intensity and keeping the reader guessing and theorizing up until its final pages. Both memorable and frightening this novel well deserves its place on 2010 best of lists. show less

Eliza Benedict was kidnapped and held hostage by Walter Bowman when she was fifteen years old. Once returned to her family, she and they set about recreating their old life in a new town and trying to pretend that everything is normal. Eliza grows up to build an ideal life with a husband and two kids only to have that peace shattered by a letter from Walter who now sits on death row awaiting execution.

Lippman does a wonderful job of showing how Eliza has compartmentalized her past trauma separate from her daily life. While a few things bleed through - a fear of leaving the windows open at night is one - she spends most of her time convinced that she is past what happened to her. Walter's letter and the subsequent phone calls show her show more just how much she has not dealt with and forces her to face the questions of how and when to tell her children about her past.

Lippman also gives us a window into the lives of the parents of another of Walter's victims; a young girl named Holly that he kills while still holding Eliza captive. Unlike Eliza, Holly's mother has not even attempted to rope off the events of the past and has largely found life unlivable since the murder of her daughter. Despite Walter's conviction for the murder, she remains convinced that Eliza could have saved Holly if she had tried. When she discovers that Eliza is in contact with Walter she is terrified that somehow Walter will escape his imminent execution.

Where the book falters is in the ending, A lot of avenues are opened in this book and few of them are truly explored in the end. Walter repeatedly hints at a dark secret that Eliza must face but the moment of truth is a non-event that falls flat and feels forced. We also never get to see any kind of ending for Holly's parents and how they deal with what eventually happens to Walter. show less

As a fifteen-year-old, Elizabeth was kidnapped by Walter Bowman and held hostage for almost six weeks. He had killed at least two other girls, yet let Elizabeth go for reasons known only to him. Now he is on death row for the murder of his last victim.

Now a grown woman, Elizabeth has changed her name to Eliza, married and had children, and shed her old identity as the rape victim and former hostage. Then she receives a letter from Walter. As his death comes near, he seems contrite.

But is that the only thing he is after? Is he finally willing to confess to murdering other girls? Or is he intent on forcing Eliza to remember everything that happened that summer, remember the truth of all that happened, to gain the upper hand and possibly show more stay his execution?

This thriller was very well written. The narrative changes from the present time to the terrible summer when Walter held Elizabeth hostage, and Lippman does a fine job building suspense through this. Each time I seemed to be close to reading all that happened—particularly with Holly, his last victim, and Elizabeth's rape—Lippman left me hanging and desperate to read on to find out the truth. (I read this in one afternoon, which is unusual for me.)

The emotions run high: Eliza is torn between her desire to leave the past behind and her desperation to protect her family from Walter's unpredictable actions. We hear the voices of the grown Eliza and the young Elizabeth, Walter, his last victim's mother, and Barbara, who, for counterintuitive reasons of her own, helps him contact Eliza and is obsessed with staying Walter's execution.

What was most fascinating to me was getting inside Walter's head and learning how warped his view of the world is, the way he manipulates others around him: Elizabeth/Eliza, his other victims, and Barbara. Fascinating and frightening. Fascinating because it opens the mind of a depraved and violent mind to the rest of us. Frightening because it points me to the unsettling question of how much do I, any of us, justify our misdeeds and manipulations of others. A question to ponder.

As a side note: there isn't much in the way of foul language, explicit violence or sexual content. Lippman alludes to the violent deaths but never describes them, and the rape scene is so barebones that most of it is left to the imagination. The technique makes Walter's crimes all the more horrifying. Effective, and a way that I wish many other writers of crime novels would take note of. show less

I'd Know You Anywhere begins innocuously enough with what seems like an admittedly dull look at one family's domestic life. Eliza Benedict is a middle-aged wife and mother of two, who recently moved to Maryland after spending several years abroad in London. Out of the blue, Eliza gets a letter one day from a man on death row about to be executed for the murders of two teen-aged girls -- the same man who abducted her when she was 15 years old and held her captive for a month's time.

For roughly the first half of the book, the third-person narrative alternates between the present day and 1985, when Eliza (then going by Elizabeth) was abducted. The sections taking place in the past are told from both Elizabeth's point of view and the POV of show more her abductor, Walter. Writing from the point of view of a rapist/murderer is tricky, and many authors fail. (They either get too descriptive and it becomes too disturbing, or they fail to make a convincing case.) The book could have gotten icky with Walter's POV but instead the author managed to get inside his creepy criminal mind without getting too sordid and uncomfortable.

In the present, we hear mostly from Eliza's POV, but half-way through the book we start hearing from other characters as well - there's Walter again of course, but we also hear from his biographer, the criminals' advocate working with him, and the mother of one of his victims. Generally speaking, I am not a huge fan of introducing new points of view mid-way through a book. I often think of this as poor writing in which an author has backed himself or herself into a corner and can't get out of it without introducing a new character and/or perspective. Lippman wrote so well in this book though that I cannot accuse her of that. Still, I could have done without hearing from Jared Garrett (the biographer) or Barbara LaFortuny (the advocate) as I don't think their perspectives added much to the narrative or even did enough to shine a light on their characterizations. I did find the addition of Trudy Tackett's perspective interesting though, especially as this allowed the book to explore deeper the issues related to trauma and grief. Trudy's life also served in some way as a foil to Eliza's. Obviously, their experiences were difference and so their responses would be as well, but Trudy seemed stalemated back in 1985 and unable to move on past her grief and anger while Eliza was able to salvage her life to some extent and press forward with the rest of her future.

Besides exploring the past and its attendant grief and trauma, there's also an underlying theme throughout of fear of technology. For instance, Eliza bizarrely despises the voice of the GPS and feels smug when it's proven wrong. Eliza's daughter Iso gets into increasingly serious trouble at school, with technological advances like Facebook and Iphones being used as part of her deceptions. But more pressingly, technology is what allows Walter, Barbara, and Trudy to all easily find Eliza even though she thought she managed to stay hidden from her past life. Obviously, another undercurrent of food for thought throughout the book is the look at the criminal justice system and the death penalty.

Overall, I found this book compelling and gripping, and it definitely left me wanting to read more at every opportunity. (It's been some time since I've read a book I could say that about!) Throughout, there's some mystery/teasing about certain past events and what really happened, which keeps the reader interested to see what will happen next. It's a fast read, although its dark content might not make a beach read per se.

The audio version has an excellent reader who mastered several different accents and perfectly modulated her pitch and tone depending on the character. She was very believable at being the various characters.

The ending of the book was a tiny bit of a disappointment as I wanted more answers than were given, particularly about what would happen in the future, but I think it was the best ending there could have been. I'd recommend this book for people looking for a compelling drama, an interesting mystery, a good character study, or something that will provide some themes to mull over long after the book is finished. show less

I love Laura Lippman. Her “I’d Know You Anywhere” is so beautifully constructed that you become so enveloped in her characters and story, you lose track of time and only want to finish the novel. The premise of Eliza wife and mother who had been kidnapped and raped at 15 seems like a familiar plot. Flashbacks flesh out the possible how’s and why’s. Eliza’s current state of mind is in play. Additionally the novel deals with Walter, the serial kidnapper murderer on death row that might have “something” on Eliza to prevent his execution. The mother of one of the murdered girls blames Eliza for her daughter’s death by Walter. Eliza’s daughter has possible “bad seed” qualities. Lippman knows how to juggle all these show more characters like a fine surgeon. Digging deep into their psyche. It all builds to a gang buster logical ending with enough guessing that all good mysteries need. show less