What the Dead Know audiobook

Laura Lippman is just a wonderful writer. This isn't about thrills and spills, but creeping dread and wonderful prose, with a turn of phrase that will makes this fellow writer bow in admiration.

I really liked this psychological thriller written by Laura Lippman. This book is set primarily in Maryland, in the city of Baltimore. Having lived in Maryland most of my life, I really like the references to places I know. I also really liked the characters in the story, and the ordeals the girls went through in this book.

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 a trace or clue of what happened to them. The mystery of what happened to those two girls has never been solved. In this novel the author provides a scenario of what might happen if one of those missing girls showed up now, forty years after the disappearance. Character development in this story was excellent, and the author did a good job exposing the various layers of the story in a carefully crafted manner. Obviously, the disappearance of a child is a parent's worst nightmare, and loosing two this way would be even worse. Dealing with the resulting guilt, blame and pain would surely play havoc on a marriage relationship. Then if a woman claims many years later to be one of those lost daughters, many mixed emotions are bound to rise again. There are of course the conflicting emotions of hoping that it's true versus the suspicion that she's not who she claims to be. The author lets the reader share in these conflicting emotions by not revealing the truth until the end.The author's writing is exquisite and manages to say so much while actually using few words. The following example quotation is a mother’s observation of her children’s growing up: “Adolescence was like a big scab or scar tissue, a gradual covering of a soul too soft and open to be exposed to the elements. “ This comment together with a couple more descriptive sentences made me feel that I fully understood the nature of this family and the feelings of the mother for her children.This is an example of a book I never would have selected to read on my own. This book is probably considered to be a "murder mystery," a genre I seldom read. I read it because it was selected by a book group with which I participate. The group selected it because it was part of the Kansas City, Missouri Public Library's 2013 Adult Winter Reading that featured books that delve into our world after dark. Most of this book takes place in the day time. However, now that I reflect on it, some of the most important events in the book did occur at night. In the end I was pleasantly surprised to thoroughly enjoy this book. When I say enjoy, I don't mean to imply that it's a happy book. Rather it's a book that describes people dealing with a mixed-up and confusing set of emotional circumstances. After reading this book the struggles of a normal life seem a bit more manageable.

Book #25 for 2013Laura Lippman never fails to impress me. Here she demonstrates mastery of the multiple-POV narrative as she weaves themes of self-identity, survival mechanisms, and forgiveness and redemption into a complex story of a prodigal daughter. This is the sort of book I feel I should read again just to see how she pulls off such a feat of legerdemain.For starters, there is the central question of the story: Is this middle-aged accident victim really who she claims to be? Or is she spinning tales to avoid being prosecuted for causing the wreck that landed her in the hospital? She obviously knows intimate details of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Bethany sisters back in the mid-'70s, but parts of her story just don't add up. I was reading this shortly after the three women were rescued from the Castro house in Cleveland, so my mind was full of alternative explanations of this woman's identity. But ultimately, none of my conjectures fit into the puzzle of her story, and Lippman's revelation made perfect sense, much like an optical illusion that requires you to shift your focus just slightly in order to see the 3-D image instead of a chaotic field of dots. Of course, this isn't a simple matter of whether or not one woman is being truthful. The original case of the Bethany girls' disappearance left its indelible marks on not only their family, but an entire community. This novel examines this shattering effect and what it means to that same family and community when one -- and only one -- of the girls seems to suddenly reappear. There was also a universality present in Lippman's telling of a fiction based on a real missing persons case. I mentioned the three women in Cleveland already, but for the last 21 years, to me, "the three missing women" has meant Sherrill Levitt, Suzie Streeter, and Stacy McCall. I think every region has its own such case that is instantly evocative of a strong sense of the world being off-kilter. It's hard not to identify with at least some of the characters in this novel.I also found the book's structure, which was patterned after the girls' father's meditative practices, intriguing. If I do re-read this book, I will certainly do some research into that beforehand. Even with my vague understanding of it, I felt that it added a lot to the underlying themes as well as to the phenomenally detailed backdrop of 1970s Baltimore. I have heard some complaints about the final scenes being unnecessary and too pat, but I feel that they were completely necessary to resolve the structure of the story and finally let the Bethany girls rest in peace.

Laura Lippman writes a mystery series described as "chick lit with guns," and that is about as far from my genre of choice as you can get. But facing a long drive and a paucity of choices, I picked up this audiobook - a standalone, not part of the series - and I really enjoyed it. So shame on snobby me.The heart of the story is a question of identity. At the start of the novel, a woman has a traffic accident and tells the police that she is one of the Bethany Girls, two sisters who disappeared from their suburban Maryland home in 1975. Is she telling the truth? If not, why would she lie? Through flashbacks, and through the perspective of different characters, We learn the story of the Bethany girls' family life and their parents' troubled marriage. This is a good mystery, tightly constructed and psychologically interesting, in the vein of a Barbara Vine novel. The different narrative voices are all convincing. The solution to the mystery is satisfying and fair to the reader. I would definitely read her again, although I'll still forego the chick-lit series.

This was a really good book that totally taps into the fears in the early 70s of kids being kidnapped. When a women is caught after leaving the scene of an accident, she claims to be one of two sisters who were kidnapped from a local mall 20+ years earlier. The book bounces around those 20+ years from several different perspectives while describing what happened to the girls and those that were left behind. Throughly enjoyable, and while I figured part of the ending out before I got there, it was still exciting to read what happened to Sunny and Heather Bethany and why.

I tried an earlier Laura Lippman and didn't care for it, but the plot of this one sounded terrific. Two girls vanish from a shopping mall; years later, a woman in a hit-and-run accident blurts out that she is one of the girls. Parts of what she says are lies, but which parts? I'm glad I gave it a shot--I enjoyed the different points of view as the book followed different characters.

Thirty years after two young sisters disappeared from Baltimore, a spaced-out woman is arrested near the city for having left the scene of an accident, and claims to be Heather Bethany, the younger of the pair; she tells of having been kidnapped by a cop, who murdered her elder sibling, Sunny, and kept Heather -- even though to start with she was just twelve -- as a sex slave before, a few years later, releasing her into the world with $5000 and a promise that they'll both keep quiet about this. In the intervening period Heather's parents split up and then her dad died; her only blood relative (oh yes?) is her mother, Miriam, now at age 68 living a sort of postponed hippie lifestyle in a small Mexican town. Of similar age is the detective, now retired, who got nowhere with the case of the Bethany sisters but could never shut it out of his mind; also investigating are a high-fee shyster, a studly young cop, and a dumpy divorced social worker.The cover is plastered with rave reviews telling me this is a unique feat of the imagination and that Lippman delves psychologically deeper than any other thriller writer. Well, yes. Although this was entertainingly enough written, I could never escape the feeling that I'd read lots like it before; I guessed the mainspring of the plot's denouement fairly early on, which didn't help. I was reminded throughout of UK writers like Ruth Rendell and Val McDermid, which sort of put paid to the "psychologically deeper" claim (which is not to say that I wouldn't have been impressed by the power of the book's psychological undertow, as it were, had the claim not been there; just that publishers should be careful what their cover quotes spark off in readers' minds). The book also reminded me of the novels of Donna Tartt, in particular The Little Friend (2002); I'm sure other readers will find plenty of other comparisons.The fact that the cover seemed very Picnic on Hanging Rock (the movie rather than the novel) didn't help.Was it a good tale, well told? Certainly it was: I was gripped. Will I look out for other Lippman novels? I should reckon so.

More on the twisty thriller kick. This one was AWESOME; I wish more of them were like this. Lippman has the same knack as Jennifer McMahon for all those little details from your childhood that you've forgotten (I wanted the nurse kit more than the doctor kit, just like Sunny, because it had a girl on it and the other had a boy, and this was taken as a troubling lack of ambition by my father). Lots of twists; I guessed close to the big one but didn't quite hit it. Big meaty book too. Definitely won't be the last of hers I read.

Compelling, literature, powerful. Lippman can get inside the skin of nearly any character. Really enjoyed this.Here's the thing, though: I sensed the big reveal that was coming probably 50 pages before it came--but that did nothing to hurt my enjoyment of the book. By then, Lippman had me so wrapped up in the characters and their various motivations that I just wanted to keep reading.That should be no surprise, really. When we go to see a Batman movie, we know Batman is going to prevail over the Joker. When we go to see a romantic comedy, we know Clark Gable is going to wind up with Carole Lombard. We go less for the what than the how and the why. The what is important--especially for engaging our head--but the how and the why are what engage our heart and keep us reading.

Mysteries are one of my favorite genres. I will now add Laura Lippman to my list of favorite mystery writers. Her outstanding plot and character development captured me from the beginning of this book. Thirty years ago 2 sisters disappeared from a mall and their bodies have never been found. We watch the disintegration of their seemingly perfect family and are drawn in by the confused, or is it cunning, young woman who is involved in a hit-and-run accident and claims to be one of the famous lost Bethany sisters.

Aunque Lippman no ha inventado la pólvora, y por más que se trate de novela de suspense psicológico (y, por lo mismo, de un género que no tiende a perdurar en la memoria, excepto en contadas ocasiones), lo cierto es que esta "Lo Que Saben los Muertos" me ha sorprendido muy gratamente.Partiendo de un estilo narrativo más rico y cuidado de lo que es habitual en este tipo de historias, casi introspectivo en algunas ocasiones, Lippman construye un relato capaz de atrapar al lector e invitarle a pasar página; hasta llegar a un final de esos que, sin grandes alharacas, en realidad es de lo más efectivo, precisamente por su simplicidad, más que a pesar de... Y sí, admito que, aún teniendo la respuesta al alcance de la mano, esta vez no las vi venir.Podría decirse que esta es una novela de personajes, más que de acciones; y dichos personajes son tan cautivadores, en especial su misteriosa protagonista femenina, que su realismo traspasa la página y realmente atrapa al lector.Lo dicho: no es la invención de la rueda, pero es mejor que la media dentro del género y resulta una lectura inmersiva, si no puramente adictiva.

A new mystery author to add to my "read" list... this was a very suspenseful book. At first I avoided it because I didn't want another abused/missing kid story... but it turned into something else along the way, despite the fact I thought I knew all of the ending. Lippman took another way getting there. Looking forward to reading Lippman's other books.

** spoiler alert ** Me gustaría mencionar, que no conocía de ninguna manera a la autora, llego a ella por un reto literario, y entre sus obras decidí este, solo por que la intención ofrece hablar de unas "hermanas"desaparecidas. Creo que la obra se enmarca en dos temas interesantes, la mentira y el sentido de culpa; la autora va retratando cada uno de los personajes definiéndoos, y dejando entreabierta su versión del asunto, o el total desconocimiento de este. La intriga real esta centrada en una mujer que esta fuera de cánones y comportamientos, que se expone a revelar un misterio pero al mismo tiempo busca como evadirlo. La desaparición de las niñas, en un centro comercial, deja unos padres desolados ante la impotencia de cualquier indicio y el sostenimiento de una relación marital que hacia buen tiempo estaba deteriorada. Un sistema judicial, sin pistas, una sociedad siempre al amparo de que un día se sepa algo más. Vamos con algo de intimidad de cada personaje en su merecido capitulo y construyendo, o reconstruyendo en un juego a temporal de ir y venir para poder hacernos, nosotros los lectores, la idea de lo sucedido, e incluso lo que dejo de suceder.En la narrativa, se expone las preguntas comunes, ante el suceso..¿Si hubiera..Quizá ,si...?? el sentido de culpa de lo que no alcanzamos a presentir, o deducir, y hubiesen salvado la situación, pero esto esta basado en la mentira, es el punto álgido, el temor a la verdad superado por una mentira, otra construida, sobre esta, y aquella sobre cada una y es un ciclo, que envuelve a la persona en miles de personas. Descubrimos una vida, que termina e inicia al mismo tiempo al amparo de estas mentiras, sobre protecciones, y malas decisiones , por temor, a la verdad. Una vida que dura aproximadamente 30 años, se abre por una vuelta en el camino, y nos lleva aun final, inesperado si, pero debo decir construido, argumentado bajo la premisa de ...No ser castigado?.Creo, que lo ultimo que diría, es que hay en la manera de crear los personajes que la autora dota a las hermanas, en su propia relación conflictiva propia de la edad, en merecedoras de reconocimiento de una cariño, de una hermandad, solida que bajo la circunstancia no logran vivir, pero sobrevive en el ser que años después encarna la propia realidad,y para enfrentar a la ausencia encarna esas actitudes que lleva en el corazón, y son el amor que quizá logro sostenerla tanto tiempo. Ha sido grato, conocer y leer a esta autora.

I listened to the unabridged recording by Linda Emond - wow! Frankly, a good reader can elevate a really good book (a 4-star) to a fabulous book (a 5-star), and Ms. Emond is a really good reader. This is a terrific mystery - I didn't see the ending coming (but admit I'm not always the swiftest at figuring out endings ahead of time, and why would one want to be?) - and the reading is fabulous. This one definitely kept me driving around the block several more times than was necessary, and then walking around with my portable CD player and ignoring the rest of the family, just to get to the ending. I lived in Baltimore for a number of years, and loved the usual exacting geographic treatment that Ms. Lippman gave to the book. For those who are familiar with the area, it was fun to read (well, listen) about Baltimore locale, mostly Baltimore County, that are definitely non-glamorous (no Inner Harbor or Fells Point here), but no less "Baltimore, hon" to the locals: Edenwald, Pikesville, Security Square Mall, I-83. Just the usual day in the 'burbs. The writing is good - although, frankly, it's tough to swear to this objectively since Ms. Emond's reading could bring a grocery list alive - and the plot, going back and forth in time, built up just the right level of suspense with just the right pacing. This is a "stand alone" mystery not within Ms. Lippman's series - I hope she writes some more of the "stand alone" variety as the break from a series really seemed to trigger her imagination and give her freedom to write a fabulous mystery.