Lady in the Lake
'Haunting . . . Extraordinary.' STEPHEN KING
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3.7 • 29 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
**NOW A MAJOR APPLE TV+ SERIES STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND MOSES INGRAM**
'A real triumph of storytelling and suspense.' Daily Mail
'A very special kind of twisted genius.' SARAH HILARY
'Complex, hard-hitting and unflinching' Irish Times
'Aching, thoughtful, and compulsively readable.' Vanity Fair
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Cleo Sherwood disappeared eight months ago. Aside from her parents and the two sons she left behind, no one seems to have noticed. It isn't hard to understand why: it's 1966 and neither the police, the public nor the papers care much when Negro women go missing.
Maddie Schwartz - recently separated from her husband, working her first job as an assistant at the Baltimore Sun - wants one thing: a byline. When she hears about an unidentified body that's been pulled out of the fountain in Druid Hill Park, Maddie thinks she is about to uncover a story that will finally get her name in print. What she can't imagine is how much trouble she will cause by chasing a story that no-one wants her to tell.
What readers are saying:
***** 'A twisty, thrilling, mesmerising ride. I couldn't put it down!'
***** 'It was a delight reading this book. I enjoyed the insight into each character. The mystery was always there, but with a different twist.'
***** 'It really grabbed me. . . more than a simple detective novel.'
***** 'The absolute best Lippman to date. . . This novel grabbed me in the first pages and didn't let go.'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1960s Baltimore, this smoldering standalone from Edgar winner Lippman (Sunburn) trails Madeline Schwartz, an affluent 37-year-old Jewish housewife who separates from her husband after dinner with an old classmate reminds her that she once had goals beyond marriage and motherhood. Maddie relishes her newfound freedom, renting an apartment downtown and starting an affair with a black patrolman, but she yearns for more. After discovering the corpse of 11-year-old Tessie Fine and later corresponding with Tessie's incarcerated killer to determine his motive, Maddie leverages her story for an assistant's position at the Star. She dreams of becoming a reporter, though, and starts investigating a crime otherwise ignored by the newspaper: the murder of Cleo Sherwood, a young black woman whose body turned up in the Druid Hill Park fountain. Lippman relates the bulk of the tale from Maddie's perspective, but enriches the narrative with derisive commentary from Cleo and stunning vignettes of ancillary characters. Lippman's fans will devour this sophisticated crime novel, which captures the era's zeitgeist while painting a striking portrait of unapologetic female ambition.
Customer Reviews
Draggin’ the lake
Author
American who lives in Baltimore. Over 20 novels, mainly in the crime genre, to her credit, as well as numerous awards and award nominations. According to LitHub, she’s one of the essential female crime writers of the last hundred years, and has written for the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, yada, yada. Every Secret Thing (2003) was made in a film produced by Frances McDormand.
Plot
Maddie is a middle class Jewish housewife in 1960s’ Baltimore. She walks away from her marriage of 18 years to “do something meaningful” with her life, such as become a journalist who solves murders, as you would. Oh, and find yourself a black lover who is also a cop. Very sixties.
Narrative
So many points of view, so little time. For reasons not apparent to me, we hear from a dead black female murder victim speaking from beyond the whatever, but not from Maddies’ black policeman love interest. Maybe Ms Lippman heard about what happened to Lionel Shriver at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival a couple of years ago and decided it was culturally inappropriate for a white female author write the POV of a black male, but writing from a black female POV was okay when she’s, you know, dead. Or maybe I’m talking through my hat.
Prose
Polished, professional, builds tension slowly. What’s not to lake?
Characters
Too many with only peripheral relevance to the story. As for the protagonist, I wish Ms Lippman had killed her off and dreamed up someone else.
Bottom line
It was okay, I suppose, but would have been better 50-75 pages shorter with a better heroine. When it comes to stories about Baltimore, Ann Tyler wins hands down IMHO.