Customer Reviews

Hardly Knew Her

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Dark, smart and violent, bestselling author Laura Lippman's first collection of short stories have a fascinating and sinister edge. HARDLY KNEW HER contains 16 tales and one novella, most told from the perspective of desperate and depressed women who find their sexuality to be both a liberating source of power and a confining detriment.

Lippman is an accomplished mystery and crime writer, and the stories here have her signature style, combining a journalistic voice with a highly charged emotional intensity (not to mention a scathing wit). In these selections there is usually a sad and cynical outcome, and even though, a few stories in, the resolution of each tale becomes familiar and predictable, each is entertaining and well-written.

Two stories center on Lippman's well-known character, private investigator Tess Monaghan. Another, as well as the novella, revolves around a former street-walker turned madame and suburban prostitute named Heloise. In "One True Love," Heloise's two lives collide when a john turns out to be the father of a boy on her own son's soccer team. She must figure out how to protect herself from the damage he could do to her legally, emotionally and physically, and she especially must protect her young son Scott. In "Scratch a Woman," Heloise's conflict is with her half-sister Meghan, an uptight and emotionally damaged suburban mom whose attempted murder of her husband is witnessed by her dangerous neighbor. In the Heloise portions of the book, we get a sense of what brought the sisters to these sad points in their lives, but the majority of the stories show us just acts of violence, and the moments before and after them.

In "The Crack Cocaine Diet," two young women try to buy cocaine in order to lose weight but end up murderers; in "Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft)," we meet a unique type of killer and are treated to a story within a story. In the title story, "Hardly Knew Her," 16-year-old Sofia wrests power from her abusive father, literally locking him out of her life. The male characters here are most often victimizers turned victim. One interesting exception is the young narrator of "Black-Eyed Susan," who is witness to the aftermath of a murder. While in many ways here the characters are one-dimensional and, for the most part, completely despicable, the stories are entertaining and wickedly fun.

Lippman's world is not for the faint of heart: it is full of prostitutes, handguns, unhappy marriages and blunt force trauma. Even though the violence is often, and the sex almost always, presented in a less than graphic manner, the acts are vivid; the details are less important than the mood she successfully creates.

By turns chilling, funny, heartbreaking and disturbing, HARDLY KNEW HER is an excellent foray into crime fiction that will thrill both Lippman fans and those who normally pass up on the genre.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

I read Lippman's book, What The Dead Know, and liked its originality, so I snapped up her book of short stories and, even though it's a totally different genre, hoped for the best. I wasn't disappointed!

The 16 shorts and a novella in Lippman's Hardly Knew Her are exceptional. I was convinced after reading these tales of murder that any ordinary soccer mom, or bored retiree, or devoted husband and father can easily be driven to homicide in a weak moment. What is so chilling about the situations in many of the stories, at least to me, is the feeling that I have met all these people before. They are not cackling madwomen, but my neighbors, my coworkers, my school friends....yikes. That is not to say that Lippman's stories themselves are ordinary - far from it.

Any one of these stories could be expanded into a full-length novel, but Lippman has pruned wisely, and carefully chosen every word to create smart noir in each of the tales. Well worth the time.

The opening story, "The Crack Cocaine Diet," is a zinger. So perfectly does Lippman capture the ribald voice of the two best friends looking to score over their ex-boyfriends that she has you hooked within a few lines. And when the story takes a few unexpected turns, you are along for the ride, never mind the whiplash. This story, a mere 13 pages, is the first of a set collectively titled "Girls Gone Wild," and you quickly get the underlying idea: that the female of the species is deadlier than the male. So, in that sense, there is no suspense; all these stories end in crimes, and you have a pretty fair idea who will commit them. What keeps you reading is Lippman's inexhaustible ability to find variations, taking you with equal assurance into upscale suburban homes, decaying row-houses, and bachelor lofts, finding her protagonists among schoolgirls, soccer moms, and white-haired retirees. Half the pleasure of reading her stories comes from Lippman's pinpoint accuracy in penetrating different corners of the modern world.

Many of the stories are set in Baltimore, where I live, so there is also the pleasing shock of familiarity. A very few depend on local preoccupations, such as Preakness or the Orioles, and may be less immediate to outsiders. As if to compensate, there is a group entitled "Other Cities, Not My Own," set in places like New Orleans and Dublin, but the stories set on Lippman's home turf seem more deeply rooted psychologically as well.

With the exception of three stories featuring Lippman's private detective Tess Monaghan, which tend to deal with lesser crimes, most of the murders in this collection go undetected or unpunished. In most cases, indeed, they come under the category of justifiable homicides, at least in the minds of those who commit them -- and the reader's sympathy is seldom with the victims. If "victim" is even the right word, for many of these guys had it coming. For Lippman's greatest strength may be her ability to portray life through the eyes of her female characters, whether protective mothers, neglected wives, or downtrodden daughters. If something cracks one day and they exact revenge, it only demonstrates the inequality of relationships that men may take for granted. Yes, there are a few gloriously evil women in this collection, with few redeeming qualities other than their sheer audacity. But for the most part, these tales add up to a feminist view of life that is smart and sexy for sure, but also disturbingly true.

If you like reading short, well written, tightly crafted stories about tough, hard-hearted women who get away with murder, you'll likely like this book. I'm a longtime fan of Lippman's Tess Monaghan Baltimore mysteries--and the mystery genre in general, but I like my heroes and heroines to be as admirable as they are clever and more sympathetic than sociopathic. That's very definitely not what's on tap here. This crowd is pretty much downright reprehensible. So, except for the three or four stories starring Tess in the Baltimore section of this collection--which, strangely, I thought were the weakest of the bunch--this really wasn't my kind of book. Which is not to say it it's not a good book; in fact does a bang up job of what it sets out to do. Just not for me.

Ever thought about murder? Oh, come on, not just a fleeting thought? Getting rid of that annoying person in your life, the one that makes those demands that take the luster out of your everyday? Murder is usually taken very seriously, and the outcomes can at times take the fun out of the deed. Laura Lippman takes the subject of murder and gives it a spin that turns into an "Ah Ha" moment. Murder for love, murder for hire, murder for lust, murder for drugs, murder for the other woman and sometimes murder for the love of, well, murder. Murder is not really mentioned but it is a fact. After all, how are we supposed to get what we need in this world?

Laura Lippman has a long history of writing in that magical manner that gives the poignant and humorous moments in the world of crime fiction. Many of her stories are set in her native Baltimore and the surrounding areas. One of my favorite stories is set in a suburb of Washington, DC-'Arm and the Woman'- Sally Holt, was so busy devising the best driving routes between her home and the private school her children attended. She was beloved by all and man seemed to gravitate towards her. That is, except her husband who gravitated away and divorced her. And, here she is beset with financial difficulties that cause her to think she may lose her home. But Sally always so innovative, gets around that. Her home is safe and so much more!

Laura Lippman has a talent for describing women just as they are. The loves of their lives and the relationships that develop, and sometimes the need for various consequences. Most of the stories deal with women, but one of the fun stories is about Charlie and 'A Good Fuck Spoiled.' After all, it wasn't his fault he got involved with his former assistant, she initiated the affair. She was so needy, and Charlie loved his family life he really did. He was in reality a homebody. All for love, really!

The seventeen stories in 'Hardly Knew Her' will bring you outside of yourself. Bring you to extraordinary people who are trying to live their daily lives. They sometimes get confused and often go off in the wrong direction, but life is for the living, isn't it? We must do what we must to get along. After All, we only live once. That's what they say!

Highly Recommended. prisrob 10-26-08

Another Thing to Fall: A Novel (Tess Monaghan Mysteries)

Every Secret Thing

With only a couple of exceptions, these short stories are so good that I almost wished Lippman stopped writing novels and dedicated her time to writing just short stories. The only two stories that are quite weak are the ones that feature Tess Monaghan. It feels like they were stuck there for no other reason other than to attract the long-time fans of this character and get them to buy this collection. The two Monaghan stories are boring and don't live up to the high standards of the other stories in the HARDLY KNEW HER.

Lippman's stories explore various ways in which women sell sex for money. The stories are very different, they are narrated in very distinctive voices and are set in extremely different social surroundings. Still, each of them addresses the relationship between sex and money in a way that is always insightful and fresh. Cheap didacticism is alien to Lippman. Among her female characters who sell their bodies in a variety of inventive ways, the only one who has character and integrity is a career prostitute. She is, of course, despised by housewives who believe that selling themselves just to one man is somehow better. Lippman makes it very clear that her sympathies lie with the honest, resourceful prostitute and not with the spoiled housewives who go to great lengths to convince themselves of their non-existent superiority. This kind of honesty is not easy to find in a genre that is addressed to an overwhelmingly female audience. The desire to keep the housewives happy and cater to their tastes has been the downfall of many an entertainer. Thankfully, Lippman is not one of them.

Laura Lippman lives in Baltimore, and most of her stories are set in this city. The few times that she ventures to other settings, her stories lose in quality. On home turf, however, Lippman is brilliant. Her love of Baltimore and her profound understanding of its history make her stories fascinating to those of us who have an emotional attachment to this beautiful city.

Laura Lippman is an author with a fertile imagination. In this book, she writes short stories about contemporary themes which are dynamic and vibrant. In most, there is a female character who is struggling with a relationship dilemma or has some personal agenda which makes her act (sometimes with an accomplice) and the usual outcome is murder. The stories are bullet-train paced as new elements are introduced, keeping the reader guessing and asking, 'where is this story going?' and 'what is the next surprise?' The writing style has a staccato rhythm that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Occasionally, there is a *shock* factor that arises from out of nowhere and yet, it fits the story like a pair of nylon stockings. The reader is drawn to the circumstances of the characters and also the location which could be places such as Dublin, Ireland; Baltimore, Maryland or even New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the best and most creative stories is about Heloise, who seems to live a typical suburban lifestyle. She owns a lovely home and drives her only son to the local elementary school where she participates in the P.T.A. Heloise is an entrepeneur in a rather unusual profession, one which has been called, the "oldest profession". In the story, she is the owner of this unique entertainment business. In fact, she herself used to be one of the "ladies of the night" who provided a very popular service to a rather high class clientele. It is after her brother-in-law tried to make an appointment for some entertainment that things *really* started moving in a myriad of directions. Eventually it resulted in his death which was ruled an accident. It is presumed only Heloise and her sister know the facts about his death but of course there was someone lurking in the background ... The author creates a great plot and ending to this highly engaging story. This book receives my highest endorsement. The author is enormously talented. She certainly deserves her multiple writing awards among which are: the Edgar, Quill, Nero Wolfe, Anthony, Agatha, Gumshoe, Shamus and Barry awards. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

Laura Lippman's short stories from the new collection "Hardly Knew Her" are a quick, engrossing read. Most of them are told from a point of view of a person who is at the same time a perpetrator, which is interesting, because there is the "inside" perspective, there is no search for a solution of a crime, but rather a story leading to the crime itself.
The majority of the main characters are also female. However, there are exceptions to both these rules: in "Pony Girl", set in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras, the narrator is a young man who just happens to be a witness of the surprisingly shocking events (this is one of the best stories, built slightly differently from the others, dark and spooky). The central characters of two other stories are male.

The motives for crimes are usual: money, marital infidelity, vanity. The stories are wonderful studies of contemporary American society and its vices. They are full of sarcasm, but strangely warm and humane. The characters, even those who commit the most hideous, cold-blooded, sick crimes, are surprisingly likeable. My favorites are Heloise Lewis, a high-end prostitute and single mother, whose love for her son overrules everything else in her life, and Mona, a sixty-eight year old widow, aging like good wine, bored in her condominium complex. Heloise is a protagonist of a great story "One True Love", who returns as one of two main characters in the novella "Scratch a Woman" where she plays alongside her step-sister, Meghan, who is as different from Heloise as only a sister can be.
Mona, vicious and daring, is a main character in a story "Femme Fatale", involving kinky sex and clever manipulations of men. Generally, all the characters in this collections are manipulative and inventive, involved in grand schemes and plots, usually successful.

To my surprise, I found the three Tess Monaghan stories the weakest in the book. Especially, I did not care at all for "The Accidental Detective". Maybe this is a special treat only for true fans of Tess, I found it tedious and could hardly wait till the end.

The fault of this collection, in my opinion, is that all the stories were published elsewhere before. Only the final novella was written especially to be published here. I think it should be rather the other way round - one story, promoting the collection, could be published in a magazine, but most of them should be new. The other fault is the relative predictability of the twisted endings - after the first two the reader easily gets the gist of it, all the stories are written along the same schematic. Therefore, I decided to nick one star, but still I give Lippman four, because I enjoyed myself for most of the time I spent with her book.

I'm a diehard fan of Laura Lippman and her Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan series. This collection displays a completely fresh and different side of Lippman's writing.

The stories are divided into three parts - Girls Gone Wild, Other Cities, Not My Own and My Baby Walks the Streets of Baltimore.

The first story is 'The Crack Cocaine Diet'. Two suburban girls decide that cocaine would be the best method to lose weight quickly. It starts off rather funny but where this story goes is completely unexpected.

'One True Love' is the story of a Heloise, a suburban prostitute who will do anything to keep her private and public life separated. Heloise and her sister Meghan are the subjects of the novella at the end of the book. I was captured by the character of Heloise and privately hope she pops up in future novels. I think we haven't even begun to see what she and her sister are capable of.

There are stories featuring Tess. The best is an interview of Tess Monaghan by Laura Lippman for the Baltimore Beacon-Light. Tantalizing snippets of information about Tess's life are sprinkled throughout.


Pony Girl is a truly frightening story. This story takes place in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. A young man decides he should keep his eye on two young women so they don't get hurt. What he ends up seeing....well I don't want to spoil the ending.

Oh and the one about senior citizen porn......and what to do with that cheating husband?



Lippman has written in many different voices - old, young and yes a few male protagonists- and characters as well as new locales.



Each story 'hooked' me. I never knew what to expect - each story was a guess as to where Lippman was going to go with it. All are wonderfully different but all showcase Lippman's marvelous talent as a writer. If you haven't read Lippman yet, this would be a great place to start.

I chose to read this book based on the author's crime writing history. While I'll admit that I enjoyed reading the short stories, I was a bit disappointed in the almost amateur way in which they were written...there wasn't much suspense. What I found to frequently happen was, as you were reaching the stories "peak," suddenly you were dropped to the ending.

Overall, however, it was an interesting book - especially if you're looking for quick, fun reads.