If you love to read mysteries and want to keep up with the writing of the top current authors of the genre, you don’t need to look any further than the excellent page-turning novels of Laura Lippman. What The Dead Know is now out in paperback, and reading it is a great way to find out for yourself how that all of the accolades critics have bestowed upon her are justified. The book, set primarily in Baltimore, as all of Lippman’s books are, explores the mysterious kidnapping of the two Bethany sisters, ages 11 and 15, from a Baltimore shopping mall, that has never been solved. No bodies were ever found, and only painful questions remain. A woman involved in an auto accident puts forth the claim to the claim that she is one of the sisters. But is she, or is she just some nut job, or a con artist, or someone trying to avoid or delay punishment by the law for leaving the scene of an accident?

The woman, who has short blonde hair, at first is very reluctant to tell the police (or anyone else) any details about herself. She refuses to even say for certain what her name is, though she eventually says that she is the younger of the two sisters, Heather, and that her older sister, Sunny, was killed shortly after they both were kidnapped. The main cop on the case, Detective Kevin Infante, doubts her story, because he realizes the case was so famous and publicized that the woman could have learned about it form the Internet and newspapers on file at libraries. Still, he finds it difficult to disprove her, and to rule out the possibility that either she’s telling the truth, or at least has intimate knowledge of what happened to the sisters. One thing is certain: that the woman who is calling herself Heather has changed her identity several times in her life, whatever the reasons may have been. Also, the information and names that she gives to her lawyer, Gloria Bustamante, Kay, a social worker who befriends her, and to the cops, all appear to be important links to the case, but lead to dead ends. Most of the people involved in the case are deceased, except for the elderly Stan Dunham, but he is in a retirement home with Alzheimer’s. DNA proves not to be a help in the case, either, as the parents, Miriam and Dave Bethany, adopted the girls and are genetically unrelated to them.

The novel is related through chapters alternating with events in the past and the present. The Bethany’s marriage eventually fails, and David dies, though Miriam has moved to Austin, and some chapters take place there or in Mexico. The author describes Baltimore, Austin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, where the majority of the novel takes place, in such colorful and vivid detail that it makes you think she must have either lived in the places she mentions or really did her research. It’s the multitude of lovingly wrought details that lends realism to the story, and sucks you into the drama of how it would feel to be the parents of kidnapped children or the children themselves.

I’d known about Laura Lippman’s writing through having read a couple of books in her series of books about the PI Tess Monaghan, and I’ve been more impressed the more I’ve read. A bonus included at the end of What The Dead Know is an excerpt from the latest Monaghan book, Another Thing To Fall, which I’ve had the pleasure and honor to read and review for this web site. If you’re unfamiliar with Lippman’s writing apart from her Tess Monaghan books, as I was, you’ll discover that What The Dead Know is an outstanding mystery that’ll keep you up late at night in its own right. I highly recommend it to Laura Lippman fans and to anyone who loves great mystery/thriller novels.

REVIEWED BY DOUGLAS R. COBB

DO NOT REPRINT WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE REVIEWER, DOUGLAS R. COBB

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