What the Dead Know
by Laura Lippman
List Price:
Our Price: $1.25
You Save: $6.74 (84%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Laura LippmanEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-02-26
ISBN: 0061128864
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of What the Dead Know
Book Review: superbly imagined
Summary: 4 Stars
We've all been haunted for a day or a week by some terrible story without an ending. I remember being riveted by the still-unsolved disappearance of those two young girls from a Baltimore mall in the 70s myself. Like most, I only guessed hesitantly at a nasty, brutish, short scenario for those children, a burial in swampland. As good at constructing a plot as she is at getting into people's heads, Lippman vividly imagines a twisty, but believable way to unravel the mystery that takes twenty years and more to play out. Only a writer as talented and connected to the scene as Lippman could imagine her way under the skins of so many people, over so much time. She is able to imagine what kind of person could emerge from the long crucible of abduction and abuse and loss of identity, and what kind of fates could befall the bereft parents, who have strongly different approaches to living with their losses. She's right, of course, that decades after such an incident, those harmed and involved will still be haunted. She's extraordinarily adept and luminous when she imagines the details of the haunting. For me this brilliance is best exemplified in a scene when the mother years later steps from the slummy, grey street-face of a Mexican hotel into its vividly gardenlike courtyard, where peacocks strut. She thinks of Dorothy's departure from colorless Kansas into technicolor Oz, and finds herself in tears remembering her children's ritual viewing of the movie each year. The classic American-ness of this image, the echo of the girls' disappearance from one world into another, the questions as to which world is heaven, which hell, explode out of this beautifully imagined moment. At the heart of Lippman's unusual and always-interesting writing are two deep wells of inspiration and obsession. Baltimore is Lippman's scene and inspiration. The city and its suburbs are her apt metaphor for America and our society--failed aspirations, faking it, cheesy possessions, wannabe imitations of the few 'aristocrats' who live unnatainably around the edges, anxious consumerism, mall architecture and interior decor all seem to defeat the capacity of her characters to be fully real to themselves and others. Her obsession is with the vulnerability of girls and very young women to their poorly formed ideas of self--which seem inevitably to lead them into disastrous circumstances. It's a miracle that some actually survive, and unsurprising that the survivors are damaged and damaging people. The unknowable survivor at the heart of this story remains opaque to the last, even when we know 'what really happened.' I don't think it is an accident that the girls' mother, Miriam, who displays quite a bit of self awareness and common sense, is a born Canadian. It's easier to enjoy Lippman's Tess Monaghan mysteries, which are lightened by more smart aleck humor and the heroine's ability to be a little outside the claustrophobic situations. But this novel, like her earlier novel, Every Secret Thing, explores and bravely imagines the mystery of human darkness at its heart so well that I'm constrained to say it's a better novel. Ordinary, naive girls do get caught up in extraordinary evil--and some of it is actually what they find within.
Summary of What the Dead Know
Thirty years ago, the two Bethany sisters, ages 11 and 15, disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They never returned, their bodies were never found, and only painful questions remain. How do you kidnap two girls from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness? Now, decades later, 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 there is something she knows about that terrible day . . . and about a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart by an unthinkable tragedy and the fissures it revealed in a seemingly perfect household.
United States Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Similar Books and other products
By a Spider's Threadby Laura Lippman
Avon; Published: 2005-06-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.89
Price in other shops:
Life Sentences: A Novelby Laura Lippman
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2010-03-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.24
Price in other shops:
No Good Deedsby Laura Lippman
Harper; Published: 2007-02-27; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.49
Price in other shops:
Another Thing to Fall (Tess Monaghan)by Laura Lippman
Harper; Published: 2009-02-24; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops:
To the Power of Threeby Laura Lippman
Avon; Published: 2006-06-27; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.44
Price in other shops:
The Sugar House: A Tess Monaghan Mysteryby Laura Lippman
Avon; Published: 2001-07-31; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.28
Price in other shops:
Baltimore Blues (Tess Monaghan Mysteries)by Laura Lippman
Avon; Published: 1997-02-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.60
Price in other shops:
The Last Placeby Laura Lippman
Avon; Published: 2003-08-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
Every Secret Thingby Laura Lippman
Avon; Published: 2004-09-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.63
Price in other shops:
The Girl in the Green Raincoat: A Tess Monaghan Novelby Laura Lippman
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2011-01-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops: