To the Power of Three

May 16, 2005
The trouble with writing the Tess Monaghan mysteries is that fans want more, more, more. Lippman scored big with her 2003 stand-alone, Every Secret Thing
, but this one doesn't pack the same punch. Here's Baltimore—outlying Glendale, anyway. Here are two terrific cops: Sgt. Harold Lenhardt, the family man, and his partner, Kevin Infante, who dates babes. But where's a woman to inspire and worry us, as Tess does? Lippman's latest teems with female characters, but none whose POV elicits strong emotion. Since third grade, three girls have been best friends: rich, pretty Kat Hartigan, athletic Josie Patel and dramatic Perri Kahn. Now high school seniors, they've come to a gruesome end in the girls' bathroom. Kat is dead. Perri, the presumptive shooter, is missing half her face. Josie has a bullet in her left foot. She alone can talk, and it's clear to Lenhardt that she's lying. Lippman zigzags her way to the moment of truth. Some of the scenes are wonderfully well told, and Lippman, as always, neatly skewers people in power (the school principal tells a 911 dispatcher, "I wouldn't characterize it so much as a school shooting... but as a shooting at the school"). But this novel doesn't so much rise above genre as make one miss it. Agent, Vicky Bijur
.

Three high school friends meet in the school's bathroom. One of them has a gun. In moments, one girl is killed instantly, one is fatally wounded, and the third is shot in the foot. What caused this tragedy? Who did the shooting? Laura Lippman enters the girls' minds, revealing their families, their social standings, and their humanity through deftly handled flashbacks. Linda Emond's performance is nicely understated, never overdoing the story's shocking theme. She offers genuine understanding of each character, even in the face of such disturbing content. One minor complaint: Music announcing the close of each CD is louder than necessary after Emond's soft tones. Even so, the story makes compelling listening. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

July 15, 2005
Kat, Josie, and Perri have been best friends since childhood, so everyone at their high school is shocked when they are involved in an early-morning shooting in the girls' restroom. One is left dead, another is in critical condition, and the third is telling a tale inconsistent with the evidence. Detective Harold Lenhardt thinks this should be an open-and-shut case -until he tries to figure out what dark secret was powerful enough to jeopardize the girls' loyalty to one other and to what lengths the remaining girl will go to keep the truth hidden. In swift prose, Lippman ("By a Spider's Thread") builds believable characters and palpable suspense. With flashbacks and a shifting perspective revealing layer after layer of deceit and manipulation, however, the conclusion feels a little anticlimactic. Still, fans of suspense fiction won't be disappointed with this solid addition to the genre. Suitable for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/15/05.] -Amy Brozio-Andrews, Albany P.L., NY

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