What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
Pages: 384
Published by William Morrow
Publication Date March 13, 2007
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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?
I originally picked up What the Dead Know because of my love for unsolved mysteries and the Anastasiaesque theme of the novel. Instead, Shawn Colvin’s Sunny Came Home came to mind. Let me explain.
Sunny and Heather Bethany disappeared and thirty years later Heather reemerges, coming home so to speak. Like Anna Anderson I called bullshit from the start and a list of names flashed through my subconscious, who could she be?
While the premise was interesting it was a long-winded story that could have been told in half the time. There was just a lot of backstory to secondary characters that seemed unnecessary and did little to move the plot along. Like most novels with flashbacks, I enjoyed those parts the most as they were the meat of the story. What the Dead Know had a box of tools to make a great mystery but unfortunately it fell flat for me. The build-up to what happened that fateful day at the mall was lackluster and needed a few small repairs. As for the twist of the Bethany Sister’s true identity, I saw it coming a mile away. Overall, my lack of empathy for any of the characters led to almost a disinterest in what happened to Heather and Sunny which is a pity because What the Dead Know had all the ingredients to be a fantastic read.
I had such high hopes for Laura Lippman’s novel but What the Dead Know was not the hypnotizing book I’d hoped it would be. In short, it wasn’t a book I looked forward to coming home to, and left me wanting more.
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