What the Dead Know (Mass Market Paperback)

by Laura Lippman (Author)
Key Phrases: psych exam, organ store, Stan Dunham, Heather Bethany, Penelope Jackson (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Edgar-winner Lippman, author of the Tess Monaghan mystery series (No Good Deeds, etc.), shows she's as good as Peter Abrahams and other A-list thriller writers with this outstanding stand-alone. A driver who flees a car accident on a Maryland highway breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of the young Bethany sisters at a shopping mall—after she later tells the police she's one of the missing girls. As soon as the mystery woman drops that bombshell, she clams up, placing the new lead detective, Kevin Infante, in a bind, as he struggles to gain her trust while exploring the odd holes in her story. Deftly moving between past and present, Lippman presents the last day both sisters, Sunny and Heather, were seen alive from a variety of perspectives. Subtle clues point to the surprising but plausible solution of the crime and the identity of the mystery woman. Lippman, who has also won Shamus, Agatha, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, should gain many new fans with this superb effort. 9-city author tour. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–After fleeing a car accident, a middle-aged woman with no ID is questioned by both the police and hospital administration. Refusing to reveal her identity (and proof of health insurance), she instead hints that she is the younger of two sisters, Heather and Sunny Bethany, who disappeared the day before Easter in 1975. This gets everyone's attention. She knows both too much and not enough about the case, leading Baltimore police on wild goose chases to Pennsylvania and Georgia, saying just enough to stay out of jail and keep them interested, albeit suspicious. The narrative threads unravel into the various accounts of that Saturday's events, the aftermath of the disappearance, the investigation, and Heather's own increasingly desperate attempts to evade further disclosure. This novel is a page-turner. Tantalizing revelations are dropped at chapter ends before veering into another part of the narrative, back and forth in time. Characters are well defined and varied, each with a different perspective on the nature of grief. Ultimately, after all of the half-truths and deceptions are played out, unexpected but moving forgiveness wins out.–Jenny Gasset, Orange County Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harper (February 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061128864
• ISBN-13: 978-0061128868
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #226,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

113 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Laura Lippman Knows, March 15, 2007

By	Tom S. "filmfan3" (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: What the Dead Know: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is one of the finest suspense novels I've read in years. Lippman is always terrific, whether she is writing her Edgar-winning Tess Monaghan series or stand-alone crime novels, but this book is exceptional, even by her high standards. Inspired by an actual incident, WHAT THE DEAD KNOW is a brilliant examination of old crimes and their present consequences.

In 1975, two teenage sisters disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall, and their fate was never determined. Now, thirty years later, an emotionally unstable woman claims to be one of the missing sisters. Her story has a lot of holes in it, and the search is on for the truth of what happened on that long-ago day. Lippman brings just the right Gothic/Noir touches to her masterful tale, slowly building the tension until it is almost unbearable. Don't miss this haunting, beautifully written novel. Highly recommended.

67 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A STORY THAT HAUNTS, March 20, 2007

By	Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: What the Dead Know: A Novel (Hardcover)

On Easter weekend in 1975 two sisters disappeared. Eleven year old Heather Bethany and her 15-year-old sister, Sunny, had gone to the mall, Security Mall, and vanished without a trace although there would be rumors, "...sightings of the girls as far away as Georgia, bogus ransom demands, fears of cults and counterculturists. After all, Patty Hearst had been taken just the year before. Kidnapping was big in the seventies."

Time passes, some thirty years, and a woman flees the scene of a traffic accident. Later she's found wandering, apparently deranged, without any money or identification. She's taken to St. Agnes Hospital, checked in as a Jane Doe because if she knows who she is she refuses to say.

Thus begins Edgar Award winning author Laura Lippman's riveting story about a family, once a strong, loving unit or were they?

Detective Kevin Infante is dispatched to the hospital to question the mysterious woman. He doesn't go eagerly as Infante is a tough cop, cynical, a memorable character who views the world and many of its inhabitants with a jaundiced eye. When the woman still refuses to speak his solution is to send her to jail.

Kay Sullivan, the social worker at St. Agnes, is the one person who befriends the woman, and when the woman says, "I'm going to say a name. It's a name you'll know," Kay is convinced Heather Bethany has surfaced after some three decades. But Infante doesn't believe this for a minute.

How to prove whether she is Heather or not? The police decide finding the mother of the Bethany girls is their only hope. But, would a mother recognize her daughter after this length of time?

Lippman who was a news reporter at the Baltimore Sun again sets her story in Baltimore, a city she obviously loves and knows well. Her narrative is meticulously crafted, moving in time from the day the girls disappeared to the present time. As scenes change readers are made aware of what the parents went through following the loss of their daughters, their attempts to cope and the final impact on them.

This author creates some of the most vivid characters to be found on a page, and again presents a story that haunts.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning!, April 18, 2007

By	nobizinfla "nobizinfla" (Windermere, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What the Dead Know: A Novel (Hardcover)

In "What the Dead Know," Laura Lippman displays her literary flair and stylistic genius in a tightly woven, hypnotic, highly intelligent adventure.

In 1975, two sisters vanished without a trace from a Baltimore mall. It was a dead end crime---no reliable witnesses, no clues, no leads, no hope.

Thirty years later a hit and run driver (with no ID) claims to be Heather Bethany (one of the sisters).

She has knowledge that only the sisters would have. As the story shifts between the decades, between fact and fiction, between imposter and the genuine article; detective Kevin Infante (a wonderful character) feels something about "Heather's" story is out of kilter.

The skeptical Infante is unconventional and uses good old-fashioned shoe leather to track down clues, hunches and intuition. His efforts lead him to believe Heather may be one a half dozen identities---or maybe all of them, or none of them.

The three-dimensional characters are caught up in loss, redemption, scrambled identities, in this evocative tale of intrigue.

Filled with pop culture touchstones from the different eras, this powerfully suspenseful crime story, seamlessly spooled out from various points of view will leave you sleep deprived.

Laura Lippman is an uncompromising novelist who is dazzling at hiding clues in plain sight. She creates a morass of deception where the details are as important as the narrative.

"What the Dead Know" is subtle, shrewd and so tightly plotted you cannot afford to skip a page.