The Most Dangerous Thing

In the late 1970s, five suburban children form an unlikely alliance and spend countless hours in the vast forest bordering their neighborhood. On the night of a hurricane, they become tangled in the death of a mysterious vagabond friend in the woods, creating a web of secrets that still impacts their lives 30 years later. Narrator Linda Emond employs limited characterizations, missing the opportunity to enhance the rich self-explorations of the characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the lies and guilt associated with that night. Still, her crisp, well-paced narrative provides cohesion throughout the intense recollections that are prompted by the funeral of the youngest, who was killed in a car crash that could have been suicide or an accident. N.M.C. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 27, 2011
Childhood friends, long since splintered off, uneasily reunite after the death of one of their own in Edgar-winner Lippman's superbly unsettling tale of the consequences of long-buried secrets. Gordon "Go-Go" Halloran drives his car into a wall after a night of drinking, even though he's been on the road to sobriety. On the brink of divorce, Gwen Robison returns home to care for her aging father and learns of Go-Go's death from his older brother, Sean. With the eldest Halloran brother, Tim, and a scruffy, nature-loving neighborhood girl, Mickey Wickham, the five had come together in the spring of 1977. The group broke apart after a violent encounter in the woods, an event that was never spoken of again, but permeates each of their lives. Lippman (I'd Know You Anywhere) cleanly shifts between the past, following the band of kids through their adventures in the woods of their Baltimore suburb, and the present when Go-Go's death draws them back together. Her series lead, Tess Monaghan, makes a brief appearance, but this stand-alone belongs to the children, their memories, and everything dangerous that lives in the woods.

January 2, 2012
When a fatal car accident—that may or may not have been a suicide—claims the life of Gordon Halloran, an alcoholic, it rips opens forgotten emotional wounds as the friends he left behind are forced to revisit old traumas and an awful lie they all share. Narrator Linda Emond’s understated performance is a perfect fit for Lippman’s leisurely prose in this stand-alone novel that alternates between past and present and employs crime as a means of probing beneath psychological facades. Edmond’s narration conveys a wide range of emotion, ably captures the book’s many characters, and never fails to keep listeners engaged as the author gradually reveals what “the most dangerous thing” really was. A Morrow hardcover.

March 15, 2011

Best friends who grew apart as they grew up reunite when one of them, the guy who never made good, ups and dies. No surprises there--except that the friends shared a nasty secret that someone has obviously spilled. And with Lippman at the helm, turning in a stand-alone, this should be absorbing indeed.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2011

Gwen, Mickey, Sean, Tim, and Gordon spent their childhood summers exploring the lushly wooded forest of Leakin Park. The five of them were inseparable until they encountered a run-down cabin deep in the woods and the mysterious man who lived there. From this chance encounter comes a tragedy that impacts their lives as well as those of their parents. When Gordon dies in a suspicious car crash years later, the surviving members of the quintet--now adults--reconnect and attempt to understand the events that took place more than 30 years before. Lippman's latest shifts between past and present and among the viewpoints of the five friends and their parents as it builds toward a surprising conclusion. VERDICT Edgar Award winner Lippman (I'd Know You Anywhere) returns with another stand-alone thriller that explores truth, lies, and the nature of childhood friendships. Although the story lacks some of the suspense and urgency of her most recent works, Lippman is an expert storyteller, and fans and mystery readers alike will appreciate her nuanced portrayal of life in small-town Maryland. [See Prepub Alert, 3/14/11.]--Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2011

Childhood playmates can't quite put their past behind them in Lippman's tale of growing up too fast but not at all.

Like the five points of the star Go-Go Halloran can't get the knack of drawing, Go-Go, his brothers Tim and Sean, Gwen and Mickey seem joined even though each points in a different direction. Tomboy Mickey hates school, loves the outdoors and is neglected by her mother, a waitress with a taste for the wrong men. Pudgy Gwen worries that she'll never be attractive, and once she is, worries even more that she'll turn into her beautiful, sad mother Tally. Tim is a bit of a lout, Sean is the perfect gentleman, but neither gets much attention because their hyperkinetic younger brother Gordon, known to everyone in Dickeyville as Go-Go, snatches up every bit of the family's limited resources. Still, the five travel in unprecedented freedom throughout nearby Leakin Park, even though grown-up Gwen would never let her daughter Annabelle spend hours on end out of the sight of any adult. They hike, catch tadpoles and discover a strange man living in a ramshackle cabin in the heart of the park. But their greatest adventure is being together until disaster tears them apart. Years later, Go-Go's funeral reunites them briefly. Mickey has reinvented herself as McKey, a fearless flight attendant. Sean lives in Florida with his quietly domineering wife Vivian. Tim lives nearby with affectionate Arlene and takes care of his widowed mother Doris. But it's Gwen, the journalist, teetering on the brink of her second divorce, who forces them to reexamine their assumptions about their shared and broken bond.

No one explores the delicate interplay between children and the adults they grow into better than Lippman (I'd Know You Anywhere, 2010, etc.).

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