Review: 'Lady in the Lake'

Lady in the Lake
By Laura Lippman
Fiction
July 2019
William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0062390011

A white woman on the brink of middle age realizes she is settled into her staid, perfect-on-the-outside life, her son nearly grown and nothing else to show for all those years. So she moves out, wants a divorce and decides her life needs to count for something. What she decides on, after helping find the body of a murdered child, is that she needs to be a newspaper writer.

Maddie Schwartz is not the only voice from Baltimore in 1966 in Laura Lippman's latest, remarkable novel. The first voice we see is that of the woman who becomes known as the Lady in the Lake, a younger black woman whose body is found in a city lake. Apparently the ghost of the young woman, Cleo Sherwood, doesn't want justice or revenge. She tells Maddie her snooping will only bring trouble.

Even as Maddie searches for a scoop as her way into a regular newspaper job, she misses stories all around her. Lippman shows the reader this over and over again, as each person whose path Maddie crosses gets at least one chapter to tell his or her story. Sometimes it's their view of what just happened, sometimes that's just the starting point of a snapshot version of their lives or to fill in something the reader will want to know.

Every single voice adds to the reader's knowledge of the Baltimore Maddie inhabits and the other Baltimores she doesn't know. Each one tells the reader about lives well lived and lives wasted.

Lippman's experience as a newspaper reporter, the daughter of a Baltimore Sun writer who worked at the paper during the era of her novel, and as a writer of mysteries and thrillers, brings expertise in the storytelling. This is true whether it's the telling detail or the connection of one character to another.

What Lippman knows and shows, however, Maddie does not. She misses every other story that is basically not about her. Even in trying to find out about the woman whose body was in the lake, even when she discovers the victim's name was Cleo to some and Eunetta to her family, Maddie is writing about herself.

And that trouble the ghost tried to warn Maddie about? It's coming. And when it does, others around Maddie could be the ones most affected.

As both a thriller and a look at writers and at the past of a city she loves, Lady in the Lake is an ode by Lippman to Baltimore and to journalism. It's an engrossing novel of many stories.

©2019 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted with permission

In Progress: Crime fiction

Two of the books I'm reading right now are in the crime fiction genre -- Laura Lippman's And When She Was Good and one of the latest in Akashic City Noir series, Kansas City.

They're both good in different ways.

Lippman's latest stand-alone is narrated by Heloise, a soccer mom who overcame an abusive father. She's not just a soccer mom, though. She's a madam with powerful clients. And another secret that threatens to overturn the double life she and her son lead. Lippman is masterful in creating voice and characters.

The Kansas City story collection, edited by Steve Paul, oozes despair the way barbecue done right oozes sauce. It's gloriously gritty, and I haven't even gotten to the Daniel Woodrell story.

And when I'm done with these, there is the new Louise Penny, more City Noir collections and a wide range of Poisoned Pen Press books. I also want to spend more time with James Lee Burke this winter. I don't see how I can go wrong.

Review: 'The Girl in the Green Raincoat'

THE GIRL IN THE GREEN RAINCOAT
By Laura Lippman
Mystery (Tess Monaghan)
January 2011
William Morrow
ISBN:978-0061938368

Tess Monaghan has been confined to bedrest during her unexpected pregnancy. She turns into Jimmy Stewart's character in Rear Window, watching the world pass by. The daily appearance of a young woman in a green raincoat and accompanying greyhound catches her attention. When they fail to appear one day, Tess gets involved.

Review: 'I'd Know You Anywhere'

I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE
By Laura Lippman
Crime Fiction
August 2010
William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0-06-202429-9

What happens to the girl who lives through her kidnapping and the murder of other girls? What made her different? How does she put her life back together? How does her family cope? And what happens if she buries it all but the past comes back to try to reclaim her?

These are some of the questions Laura Lippman addresses in her new standalone novel, I'd Know You Anywhere. That these questions are addressed through the action of the story and by what the characters do shows what a strong book this is, even stronger and more subtle than her brilliant last standalone, Life Sentences.

Upcoming reviews

After finished Laura Lippman's new brilliant novel, I'd Know You Anywhere, it became clear this late summer and fall publications are going to offer some fascinating reading.

A review of Lippman's latest standalone is next up here, while September reviews will include debut novelist John Addiego's Tears of the Mountain from Unbridled Books. October's offerings will include another debut novel, Mr. Toppit, by Charles Elton from Other Press, and the mammoth Best American Noir of the Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler, from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.