What the Dead Know
by:
Laura Lippman (author)
One of the most acclaimed and honored writers in the field of crime fiction, Laura Lippman offers readers a gripping tale of deception and delusion, of family wounds and betrayals. Thirty years ago, the Bethany girls, ages eleven and fifteen, disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They...
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One of the most acclaimed and honored writers in the field of crime fiction, Laura Lippman offers readers a gripping tale of deception and delusion, of family wounds and betrayals. Thirty years ago, the Bethany girls, ages eleven and fifteen, disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They never returned, their bodies were never recovered, and only painful questions remain. Now, in the aftermath of a rush-hour hit-and-run accident, a clearly disoriented woman is claiming to be Heather, the younger Bethany sister. Not a shred of evidence supports her story, and every lead she reluctantly offers takes the police to another dead end—a dying, incoherent man; a razed house; a missing grave. But she definitely knows something about that terrible day—and about the shocking fissures that the tragedy exposed in the foundation of a seemingly solid family.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780061771354 (006177135X)
ASIN: 006177135X
Publish date: February 10th 2009
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Pages no: 400
Edition language: English
Many readers found this book engaging. Lippman set herself up with a challenge: the main character may or may not be who she says she is, and without knowing her or trusting her, we have to empathize with her enough to like reading her story. Opinions seem to vary on whether she is successful in mak...
As is the norm for Lippman, this book is well-written. However, I found that for me, the "twist" could be seen from a mile away, there wasn't enough suspense, and the ending just wasn't that plausible.
I was into this book a little ways before I remembered that I had heard this interview with the author on NPR radio. The idea for this book is based on [inspired by] an actual event that occurred in a Washington, D.C. suburb in 1975 when two teenaged sisters disappeared from a mall without leaving ...
Two sisters, young teenagers, disappeared from a shopping mall in 1975. There were no leads, no suspects. Now, thirty years later, a woman picked up on hit and run charges is claiming to be one of the girls. She knows a lot, about the girls, about their family, about their childhood, but so many ...
mp3Up through Georgia, S. Carolina, N.Carolina, Virginia and into Maryland to visit Grandmother.This reads like the shuffle button on the Best of the 70's; lines plucked from myriad popular songs seem to form the backbone of the tale.