What the Dead Know: A Novel - Hardcover

Lippman, Laura

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061128856 ISBN 13: 9780061128851

Publisher: William Morrow, 2007

Synopsis

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?

About this title

About the Author

Since Laura Lippman's debut in 1997, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the "essential" crime writers of the last 100 years. Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her family.

From AudioFile

In Baltimore a young woman flees an accident and when she's apprehended, she stonewalls police about herself except to reveal that she is one of the Bethany sisters, who disappeared thirty years before. The young woman has a flat affect, and Linda Emond characterizes her tonelessly as she makes one evasion after another about the present while claiming decades of abuse and the adopting of multiple personalities to survive. Linda Emond's voice is neutral in filling in the aftermath of the abduction. She saves emotion for her depiction of the suspicious detective who reopens the cold case. Emond's characterization of this feisty, sexually charged man is edged with rough and passionate tones. S.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0061128856
• ISBN 13: 9780061128851
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384