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| What the Dead Know | 
 enlarge | Author: Laura Lippman
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  110 reviews
Sales Rank: 9729
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0061128864
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061128868
ASIN: 0061128864
Publication Date: March 1, 2008
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 105 more reviews...
 What Laura Lippman Knows March 16, 2007
101 out of 104 found this review helpful
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.
A STORY THAT HAUNTS March 20, 2007
83 out of 93 found this review helpful
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
"World of epilogues" June 4, 2008
35 out of 40 found this review helpful
It was a parent's worst nightmare. Sunny and Heather Bethany disappeared from a Baltimore mall in 1975 and no real trace of them was ever found. Now thirty years later a disoriented woman walks away from a motor vehicle accident and claims to be one of the Bethany sisters.
Author Laura Lippman built a story spanning the thirty years, moving back and forth in time and bringing the characters to life. Sunny, fifteen, and Heather, eleven, are realistic and well-delineated. Their parents, Miriam and Dave, survive the loss in very different ways. The present-day mystery woman is abrupt and secretive, not likable and not easy to know. While two of the characters seemed to me to be somewhat stereotyped, the rest had the kind of realistic loose ends that only a good writer can create.
What the Dead Know feels like a novel rather than a suspense novel, if you care to make that distinction. There is a great deal of beautifully written back-story and some readers may think it's extraneous to the plot line, but the narrative conveys a vivid sense of time and place that is its own reward. The bonus I found in this book is the way Lippman wrapped it all together into a surpisingly well-supported ending.
Recently I've read several books in which the narrative moves back and forth along the time line of the story. I'm a little wary of that structure but Lippman handled it beautifully.
I listened to the unabridged CD version of this book and found the performance by Linda Emond to be very effective. While I prefer a book in print, this is one audio presentation I can recommend enthusiastically. I'll definitely be reading more from this fine writer.
Linda Bulger, 2008
 irritating: "a police" is used as a noun throughout May 14, 2007
23 out of 34 found this review helpful
I bought this because of a good review in The Onion, which I've always trusted, being as irreverent as they are. On page one of the book, there was something that told me it wouldn't be great, but I read on. Shoulda trusted my gut and stopped when I still could -- I read fast, so I almost never abandon a book.
Not only was the writing flat and forced, but the story is full of unlikely coincidences and implausable decisions. Just wait 'til you get to the end! I won't spoil the twist, but there are TWO places near the end where "Heather" does something no normal person would do (in front of the window, and after going to the diner), just to force the plot to turn.
And there's this incredibly irritating habit of replacing "police officer" with just "a police" ... as in, "That's why he became a police in the first place." Not once (as a quirk?), and not just one character (to demonstrate dialect?), but everyone from the Long Islander to the Baltimore natives to the trans-continental drifter!
Last, I want to weigh in on Laura Lippman's decision to copy so many details from the Lyon sisters' true disappearance: she justifies this by saying that, once she was writing, it simply HAD to be set in 1975. Hogwash. A halfhearted apology for a really unnecessary exploitation. That poor family did not need this insult.
A great story, but the Ending was a minor let down June 3, 2007
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
I really enjoy a great mystery novel and my friend recommended this book. The main character "Heather" was sort of a ringer. Normally, if the author is skilled in their writing I will find myself rooting for this character, but that didn't happen until near the end of the story which was a little late. While I'm on the subject of the ending, well it was real let down. But I don't want to give the impression that this was a terrible novel, because it wasn't. The plot will keep you reading page after page and it's certainly an excellent, suspenseful read.
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