What the Dead Know
What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman 
This is a mystery/crime/chick-lit novel that I'd been hearing about for a few months. I think first amazon recommended it to me and then I found a brief review of it on Mindy Kaling's blog.
I'm not going to delve into the plot too much because I don't want to give anything away. The basic story is that in the mid 70's, 2 young sisters disappeared from a shopping mall and were never seen or heard from again. The case was a dead end, never solved like so many missing children stories. The novel even makes reference to other high-profile missing children cases like Adam Walsh and Etan Patz. Well fast forward to 2007, and a woman is involved in a hit and run. When the police take her into custody she claims to be one of the missing sisters. Annnnd the mystery begins!
What surprised me about this book was how much detail the author put into examining the family dynamic both before and after the girls went missing. I was under the impression this was a straight up mystery novel but to me this read more like a dramatic family novel with a touch of mystery thrown in to provide context for the family's behavior. At first I had trouble paying attention to the book, as I didn't feel particularly invested in the family but I started to enjoy the book more as it got into the witty cop-banter and actual mystery solving. It was a fairly compelling mystery, and while my mind was not TOTALLY blown at the end, I was moderately surprised. Also I appreciated that in reflecting on the book afterwards I could see how the author placed subtle clues pointing towards the conclusion. What I liked best about the mystery aspect was that it was not an unbelievable conclusion tacked on simply to wrap up the novel but actually correlated to everything earlier in the book- both physical and documented evidence as well as the personalities of the characters.
I didn't totally LOVE the book but that's probably because I was expecting more of a standard mystery novel and less of a "chick lit" type book. Nothing against chick lit, I can get down with it from time to time but that wasn't what I went into this looking for. Despite that, it was a pretty good book. I'll probably check out more by this author in the future.
Recommended for:
This is a mystery/crime/chick-lit novel that I'd been hearing about for a few months. I think first amazon recommended it to me and then I found a brief review of it on Mindy Kaling's blog.
I'm not going to delve into the plot too much because I don't want to give anything away. The basic story is that in the mid 70's, 2 young sisters disappeared from a shopping mall and were never seen or heard from again. The case was a dead end, never solved like so many missing children stories. The novel even makes reference to other high-profile missing children cases like Adam Walsh and Etan Patz. Well fast forward to 2007, and a woman is involved in a hit and run. When the police take her into custody she claims to be one of the missing sisters. Annnnd the mystery begins!
What surprised me about this book was how much detail the author put into examining the family dynamic both before and after the girls went missing. I was under the impression this was a straight up mystery novel but to me this read more like a dramatic family novel with a touch of mystery thrown in to provide context for the family's behavior. At first I had trouble paying attention to the book, as I didn't feel particularly invested in the family but I started to enjoy the book more as it got into the witty cop-banter and actual mystery solving. It was a fairly compelling mystery, and while my mind was not TOTALLY blown at the end, I was moderately surprised. Also I appreciated that in reflecting on the book afterwards I could see how the author placed subtle clues pointing towards the conclusion. What I liked best about the mystery aspect was that it was not an unbelievable conclusion tacked on simply to wrap up the novel but actually correlated to everything earlier in the book- both physical and documented evidence as well as the personalities of the characters.
I didn't totally LOVE the book but that's probably because I was expecting more of a standard mystery novel and less of a "chick lit" type book. Nothing against chick lit, I can get down with it from time to time but that wasn't what I went into this looking for. Despite that, it was a pretty good book. I'll probably check out more by this author in the future.
Recommended for:
- People who enjoy Jodi Picoult books until she fucks them up with stupid, asinine endings. (This book reads VERY much like a Jodi Picoult book would if she had an editor who told her to stop being a moron and using contrived courtroom scenes and forced happy endings.)
- Fans of crime novels, or anyone who wished they would make a Law & Order/CSI/NCIS movie.
- Anyone who enjoyed We Were the Mulvaneys but wished it wasn't 600 tedious pages of a narcissistic family self-flagellating over thier bad decision making. This was shorter with more likeable characters and didn't try to be steeped in IMPORTANT LESSONS.
- Residents of Maryland (particularly the Baltimore area)
- Fans of American Pastoral who want a novel with similar family dynamics but at a much easier reading level. (I read this book in 2 days. I read American Pastoral in like 2 months and it's only 32 pages longer. yikes.)