What The Dead Know

What The Dead Know, by Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman, the Edgar Award winning writer of the Baltimore mysteries featuring private investigator Tess Monaghan, writes an excellent thriller loosely based on actual events that happened in the Baltimore area in 1975. In the book, What the Dead Know, two young sisters, Heather and Sunny Bethany disappear without a trace from a Maryland shopping mall.  It remained a cold case, but never far from the minds of the Baltimore police force.  Thirty years later a woman is arrested for a hit-and-run accident on the Baltimore beltway, and she claims to be Heather Bethany, one of the missing sisters.  Through a series of flashbacks, the reader comes to know the tragic story from several perspectives.  The book pieces together the events of what happened in that shopping mall so many years ago.  The resolution of the mystery is twisting and surprising but the trip there is worth the bumpy ride, especially with the interesting and complex characters.  Laura Lippman is one of the most gifted mystery writers in the field.
-Kathy C