What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of What the Dead Know
Book Review: So-So
Summary: 3 Stars
This was definitely not my favorite Laura Lippman book. I felt it dragged in a number of places and the ending was really rather expected, rather than a surprise.
If you want to read Lippman at her finest, check out the Tess Monaghan series.
Book Review: Soild Cold Case Pageturner
Summary: 4 Stars
What The Dead Know is the first novel I've read by Laura Lippman. The story begins with a hit and run accident. The woman involved is picked up and claims to be one of the Bethany sisters, two teenage girls who disappeared from a Baltimore mall many years ago. Through flashbacks and the investigation of homicide detective Kevin Infante, the truth about the mystery woman eventually comes to light.
Lippman's characterizations are deft and her attention to detail is superb. The plot was a little convoluted for my taste, but her writing style more than made up for any shortcomings. I was a little disappointed by the ending, but all in all, the book was entertaining and well written. I found the characters to be very realistic and they all kept me intrigued enough to keep reading. Well written dialog is very important to me and this book succeeded on that front. I will definitely add more of Lippman's novels to my reading list. A solid effort.
Book Review: Suffers from Its Critical Praise
Summary: 4 Stars
I picked up this novel at the suggestions of "The Strand" magazine that named it the best novel of 2008. Unfortunately, with praise such as this even good stories come off feeling overrated. This novel was well plotted up until the end where I found the resolution rather disappointing. Still the journey is worth it. The characters are all well rounded, real and interesting. Certainly worth the time and definately enjoyable, but not the best thing I've read this year.Book Review: The dead should have never told me.
Summary: 2 Stars
"...never again will they have any share in all the happens under the sun"...After reading this editing blunder in the opening Biblical quotation, I was uneasy about what was to come (even if it wasn't necessarily the author's fault).
Prior to reading _What the Dead Know_, I had never read a Lippman novel. I find her writing to be "heavy-handed" (not sure if I can explain what that means) and her prose to be too contrived. Like most authors, there are narrative asides, but many of Lippman's asides are too random and distracting. An aside should be natural and smooth with the rest of the narrative, not make a reader overly aware of the author's writing efforts. Most of the novels I read, I find myself agreeing with the narrator, but throughout the novel I disagreed with the narrator's statements/opinions.
Many of the characters are steroetypical and flat...The lesbian (or possibly lesbian) lawyer Gloria Bustamante (bust a man? was the name really that symbolic!?) made me immediately think of Gloria Allred--Lippman couldn't even come up with an original first name. Infante was so stereotypically male (womanizer) that it felt like the female author was trying too hard to write from a male point of view. (Oh, and who uses the term "police", as in "I always wanted to be a police when I grew up" or "He is a police"...If the author wanted to be PC and not use the term "policeman", why didn't she write "police office". It may be a small detail, but it drove me nuts b/c it was repeated throughout the book.)
I didn't mind the timeline of the novel--it wasn't hard for me to follow, especially since the author tells you prior to each section if that section is going to be past or present.
The twist at the end wasn't bad--I'll admit I didn't see it coming, but I definitely should have. But the woman claiming to be a Bethany sister was so unsympathetic to me that I didn't really care what happened at the end of the book.
Book Review: WOW!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very good book,riveting though the best part of the book is at the end it's worth the wait. Author builds the suspense level way up to find out the true story. Most stories that deal with alot of facts tend to loose the reader but this isn't the case here. No, I'm not going to tell you how it plays out but I will tell you this when I was done with the book I said that was a really great book. It makes me want to check out other stuff done by the author. This would make a great movie too!