What the Dead Know
by:
Laura Lippman (author)
Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon...
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Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been? Why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved Baltimore cop? There isn't a shred of evidence to support her story, and every lead she gives the police seems to be another dead end—a dying, incoherent man, a razed house, a missing grave, and a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart not only by the crime but by the fissures the tragedy revealed in what appeared to be the perfect household.In a story that moves back and forth across the decades, there is only one person who dares to be skeptical of a woman who wants to claim the identity of one Bethany sister without revealing the fate of the other. Will he be able to discover the truth?
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Format: kindle
ASIN: B000OI0F6W
Publish date: October 13th 2009
Publisher: HarperCollins
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.