What the dead know

Laura Lippman's latest, WHAT THE DEAD KNOW (William Morrow, c2007, ISBN 978-0-06-112885-1) is a wonderful read. I'm not familiar with her series, but I would recommend each and every one of her stand-alones, this one included.

Now into its third week on the New York Times Best Sellers List, set mainly in Baltimore, MD, (Ah, I love Maryland!) it starts with a car accident and a woman involved claiming to be Heather Bethany, one of the Bethany sisters who disappeared thirty years previously from a local shopping mall.

The book then starts to flip back and forth in time, which is okay, to tell the story of the Bethany girls, how their disappearance came to affect the family unit and to let the reader in on little subtle clues leading up to the kapow! finale.

Also involved in the story are the Bethany girls' parents, Dave and Miriam as well as investigating police officers Kevin Infante and Nancy Porter and Chett Willoughby, the officer who was responsible for the case back when it first happened.

The story begins:

Her stomach clutched at the sight of the water tower hovering above the still, bare trees, a spaceship come to earth.

There is a reason her book has made it to the NYT bestseller's list and that reason is because it is just darn good!