What the Dead Know
by Laura Lippman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Laura LippmanEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Published: 2008-03-01
ISBN: 0061128864
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of What the Dead Know
Book Review: A thirty-year search for the truth
Summary: 4 Stars
Two sisters, Sunny and Heather Bethany, disappear from a Baltimore mall in 1975. They are never found. Their parents' marriage does not survive the tragedy, and after a few anguished years, they divorce. Thirty years later, a car skids on an oil slick, causing an accident. The driver wanders away from the scene and is later apprehended, at which point, seemingly dazed, she claims to be Heather. The police are not convinced of her veracity as they investigate the meager details she provides, details that only Heather would have known. They cannot fully discredit `Heather,' but neither can they support her claim. All clues lead to a dead-end with witnesses who are either dead or incapacitated or whose whereabouts are unknown.
What the Dead Know is a modern-day Anastasia tale that's very intriguing. If the woman is indeed Heather, the reader is eager to know the circumstances behind the girls' disappearance. Who abducted them? What happened to her sister? Why didn't she contact her parents for 30 years? If she is not Heather, then who is she and why is she claiming to be one of the Bethany girls?
An ambitious story like this could have easily gotten out of hand. Thankfully, it does not. I admire authors like Ms. Lippman who take full control of their stories--they disperse the clues all throughout to entice the reader slowly towards the truth. At the same time, they are able to rein in details that would take the reader too far away from it. Disparate threads are woven within the central story but Ms. Lippman is able to corral them neatly at or before the end. She's able to sustain the suspense and the tension, so much so that I was tempted a few times to jump to the conclusion just to get some relief from it. Good thing I didn't, because even though I correctly guessed the woman's identity I could not have foreseen this ending. The historical details are accurate and they lend credibility to the story. However, there are a couple of niggling details that didn't make sense to me, but I can't bring those up as they would spoil the story for prospective readers.
Characterization, for the most part, was well done. The parents, Miriam and David, are credible. So are the Bethany girls. The dynamics within their family make for interesting reading and as a matter of fact, those dynamics and even the seemingly innocuous incidents in their lives become very important aspects in the final revelation of the truth. More significant are the girls' personalities and proclivities, which are firmly and clearly established in the beginning. These play a very important role in the events of that fateful day in 1975. Unfortunately, there are some characters who are rather clich?d such as Infante, a ludicrously libidinous detective, and the tough-as-nails lawyer Bustamante.
Although not faultless, I still recommend `What the Dead Know.' It's an engrossing and original story. Even if armchair detectives figure out early on if `Heather' is an impostor or not (and if so, who she really is), they will probably not be able to predict the denouement. Its clever gamesmanship will truly entertain until the end when all is satisfactorily explained.
Summary of What the Dead Know
Thirty years ago, the two Bethany sisters, ages 11 and 15, disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They never returned, their bodies were never found, and only painful questions remain. How do you kidnap two girls from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness? Now, decades later, in the aftermath of a rush-hour hit-and-run accident, a clearly disoriented woman is claiming to be Heather, the younger Bethany sister. Not a shred of evidence supports her story, and every lead she reluctantly offers takes the police to another dead end—a dying, incoherent man; a razed house; a missing grave. But there is something she knows about that terrible day . . . and about a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart by an unthinkable tragedy and the fissures it revealed in a seemingly perfect household.
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