Review: The What the Dead Know CD

The What the Dead Know CD by Laura Lippman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Before I get into this review, I need to explain a few things. I don't like to read books about endangered children. Right now, I don't like to read books about missing people. They hit too close to home for me, and I cannot vicariously enjoy the tension created by these situations. My reasons are simple: these situations are too real. When I was a teenager, two girls in my hometown were killed by a serial killer. I did not know Michelle and Melissa Urbin, the sisters he kidnapped and killed from Fenton. I went to a neighboring school. The facts of their disappearance and deaths shaped my personality and reading taste, though. I do not enjoy reading books from the point of view of a rapist or killer. And the tension created by endangered children sickens me. I've only recently begun to avoid books about missing people, and I don't know how long that will last. In December, one of the professors in my department was reported missing. Her disappearance is considered a possible suicide, but without any clear evidence of her fate, the case remains open.



I didn't want to burden this review with this information in order to seek sympathy. Instead, I want you to understand that this book was so amazing that I was able to enjoy it despite the baggage I brought with me.



As the cover copy makes clear, this novel opens with a traffic accident. A woman is involved the accident and drives away; when the police find her walking down the road a few miles away, she is unable to provide identification. In an attempt to distract the police officer from her role in the accident, she tells him that she is one of the "Bethany girls," referring to an unsolved case of missing sisters from 30 years before.



The police immediately suspect that this woman is not telling the full story. She explains that she's been living under an assumed name for years and does not want to endanger her privacy, so she refuses to give them her current name. She does not want publicity. She knows facts of the girls' lives, but most of that information is available to a dedicated internet searcher. The police do not know what to believe, but they do know they have a mess on their hands. Detective Kevin Infante is assigned to investigate the woman and determine the truth--if such a thing exists.



The novel unfolds slowly, moving between multiple narrators to tell the story of the missing girls, their family, and the investigation. From memory, I would say that there may have been as many as eight narrators. The chapters move back and forth between the narrators and back and forth between the present and the past. Thankfully, Lippman is a powerful writer, and the switches between different points of view were rarely jarring. Instead, we as readers get to see the tapestry of lives woven around the missing girls. We see how their loss devastates their parents, Miriam and Frank. We see the relationship between the girls as we learn of their childhood. We see the frustration of the detectives as they seek to discover the threads that tie this unnamed woman to the Bethany girls.



This is not a novel that delights in pain. Despite the emotional pain of the girls' loss, this novel never becomes voyeuristic. This is not a book about what happens to the girls after they disappear from the mall. This is a book about what happens to everyone else. The woman who claims to be a Bethany girl forces the police to reopen the case and reevaluate their investigation. She claims that her captor was a cop, further complicating the matter.



What is the truth? Who is this woman? That's something that, for the time being at least, only the dead know for certain.



It's up to Kevin Infante and the Baltimore PD to discover if there are any answers available.



As the fact that I'm reviewing an audiobook should make clearn, I listened to the audio edition of this novel. Eerily enough, I started this book on March 29, the same day the girls disappear. Linda Emond narrated the book, and she was remarkable. Lippman's writing changed with each shift in point of view, and Emond's voice changed with it. Despite the tricky nature of the narration, I never found myself confused as to which character was the viewpoint character at any time. For those of you that enjoy audibooks, I recommend this edition highly.



Overall, I found this book compelling. I could not wait to drive to work and listen to the next installment. While I was able to anticipate some of the answers, I did not see everything coming.



Lippman is a brilliant writer, and I look forward to exploring the rest of her works.



View all my reviews