What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Children can be happy when their parents are miserable. But a parent is never happier than her unhappiest child.”- What the Dead Know, Laura Lippman

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?

I didn't particularly want to start with this Laura Lippman book. No, I wanted to read her arguably most famous work, Every Secret Thing, but that book not only had an ugly cover and was more than I was willing to pay and the library copy was falling apart, so I put it down. And then I stumbled upon this book in Goodreads Deals for $1.99 and figured what the hell. That was probably a mistake.

For one thing, the book took me way too long to read for a mere 350-400 page book. But for some reason, I felt as if it was almost a 100 pages longer than it actually was, with the story, a story made for a 300 page if that novel, stretched out like taffy being pulled until you could see through it. 

(Does that metaphor work?) (Who the hell cares, let's just roll with it.)

But let me back up. Explain to you my first thoughts. Which were actually extremely positive. I settled into this book in my favorite chair with a bag of Cape Cod chips nestled in the curl of my elbow. I admired the pretty prose (though there were a few paragraphs I had to read twice) and put the book down after a mere twenty minutes of reading (after which I was dismayed to discover I had only read about 5% of the book) to do something else. I liked the way Lippman set up the opening scene, liked the way she set up the characters, couldn't find anything to complain about really. 

And then, I started reading more and more. And, much in the same way my Megan Abbott experience went, the flaws and patterns in Lippman's writing style began to stick out. For instance, I noticed that Lippman, when describing a person, won't say something like "she was a tall, fat, older woman". No, instead she would say something along the lines of "tall and fat, she was an older woman". Personally, I'm fine with this tactic being used occasionally, just to switch things up a bit, but the amount of times Lippman used this grated on me. I wasn't surprised at all to learn she was a reporter, because it's a very reporter thing to write. But the writing wasn't my biggest annoyance with the novel.

No, there's something, or someone, far worse.

Meet Heather Bethany, the only person in the world to ever be sexually abused. Seriously. I know this probably is the exact wrong thing to say, but she needed to build a bridge and get over herself already. She pissed me off with her constant victimizing of herself, claiming that everyone else was responsible for the fact that she had a shitty life, and even judging others for their problems because she had everything so much worse. I hated her. She reminded me strongly of Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire, but there was something I was able to pity about Blanche, and Blanche wasn't nearly as obnoxious and self-victimizing as Heather. No, Blanche was more annoying than anything else, but not so much that her downfall wasn't sad and horrific. By the end of this novel, I actually wanted something along the same lines as what happened to Blanche happen to Heather, which may make me a horrible person but it's the truth. 

There was also something strongly reminiscent of Lolita in Heather's backstory, but I always felt the same way about Dolores Haze as I did about Blanche, so I couldn't connect the two on that level.

I mean, most of the other characters were horrible, too. The only ones I really liked where Willoughby, Nancy, and sometimes Lenhardt and Kay. All the others, especially Miriam, had this snobbery that I detested, as if they acted like they were so much better from everyone else. I also hated about how much attention was given to the looks of Miriam and Heather, about how they were so beautiful and such geniuses and everyone loved them or was jealous of them because of it. Ugh. The whole Bethany family just annoyed the living hell out of me, especially Miriam and both the Bethany girls. Dave's heart always seemed like it was in the right place, so I gave him a bit of a pass.

The best parts of this book were the crime parts with the detectives (big surprise). When Lippman took us back to the police station I felt comfortable, like I had been here before and like the story was actually moving forward. The treadmill effect (when you feel like you've read so much and then you look how much is left and you haven't even made a dent in it) hit this book particularly hard. It was so discouraging to read for two hours (I've finished books in less time) and realize that I've only made it through 20% of it. Much of it is Lippman's fault, I think, because just as we would be getting closer to the ending, suddenly, another goddamn flashback would show up. I think I was almost going to cry during one part, when Willoughby dropped a bombshell and I was thinking "yes, this story was finally getting somewhere" and then I turned the page and the chapter heading said "Miriam". I literally couldn't stand Miriam's parts, I didn't care about her goddamn perfect life in Mexico, where she was complaining that she started fresh so the mean people wouldn't judge her for "moving on". 

I also found myself getting really tired of this book really quickly. Like I could only take about 2 hours worth of this book. Any more than that, and it will make your head hurt.

This all being said, I didn't really hate this book. The ending I didn't like, the Bethany family I didn't like, but the story was good and so were the detectives. What could easily have been an 8 out of 10 for me ended up being in the middle of the road because of the two above things. 

I think I'll classify Laura Lippman with Megan Abbott in my brain. Both are definitely talented thriller writers, popular with many people, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either one, but neither worked for me. However, I feel considerably less eager to pick up another Lippman, unlike the way I felt towards Abbott. I still might read Every Secret Thing, but I think I'll live without it, even though I do give thriller writers more chances than other writers because it's such a fickle genre for me, and who knows, I might end up loving it. I suppose fans of Gillian Flynn might appreciate the horridness of the female characters in What the Dead Know, but I've never read her either. She's on my list though. But all I know about this book is I'm sure as hell glad it's over.

6 out of 10