What the Dead Know

In Baltimore a young woman flees an accident and when she's apprehended, she stonewalls police about herself except to reveal that she is one of the Bethany sisters, who disappeared thirty years before. The young woman has a flat affect, and Linda Emond characterizes her tonelessly as she makes one evasion after another about the present while claiming decades of abuse and the adopting of multiple personalities to survive. Linda Emond's voice is neutral in filling in the aftermath of the abduction. She saves emotion for her depiction of the suspicious detective who reopens the cold case. Emond's characterization of this feisty, sexually charged man is edged with rough and passionate tones. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from January 22, 2007
Edgar-winner Lippman, author of the Tess Monaghan mystery series (No Good Deeds
, etc.), shows she's as good as Peter Abrahams and other A-list thriller writers with this outstanding stand-alone. A driver who flees a car accident on a Maryland highway breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of the young Bethany sisters at a shopping mall—after she later tells the police she's one of the missing girls. As soon as the mystery woman drops that bombshell, she clams up, placing the new lead detective, Kevin Infante, in a bind, as he struggles to gain her trust while exploring the odd holes in her story. Deftly moving between past and present, Lippman presents the last day both sisters, Sunny and Heather, were seen alive from a variety of perspectives. Subtle clues point to the surprising but plausible solution of the crime and the identity of the mystery woman. Lippman, who has also won Shamus, Agatha, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, should gain many new fans with this superb effort. 9-city author tour.

May 28, 2007
Emond sounds more than a little like Laura Linney, and her plainspoken, occasionally whispery reading of Lippman’s disturbing novel of buried secrets often brings the acclaimed actress to mind. Lippman’s novel shuttles back and forth between the present, where a middle-aged woman is involved in a hit-and-run accident, and a past in which two girls are abducted from a mall and never seen again. Do the two events have anything to do with each other? Emond brings a sense of quiet force to Lippman’s story, her voice imprinted with sadness and a sense of life’s tragic surprises. Her reading bridges the unbridgeable gaps between past and present in Lippman’s story, offering little in the way of surprises but a marked amount of suppressed, nearly palpable emotion. Simultaneous release with the Morrow hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 22).

Starred review from November 15, 2007
A woman is found disoriented and wandering the street after a hit-and-run accident. Although the accident is not that serious, police are intrigued by the woman's reluctance to provide identification and her claim to be one of a pair of sisters abducted from a shopping mall 30 years earlier. Following her statement, the woman clams up. No bodies were ever found, and many who worked on the missing sisters' caseincluding the girls' fatherare dead or terminally ill. The story moves back and forth through time with suspenseful pacing as the listener gradually begins to understand the terrible consequences of this event. When the girls' mother is finally located, the dramatic suspense is breathtaking and leads to a finale that is completely plausible and satisfying. Linda Emond gives a wonderful performance, using different voices and accents to bring immediacy to the many characters and circumstances. Her pacing adds to the mystery and never leaves the listener in doubt as to the time frame and setting. Anyone who ever questioned why Lippman has won every major crime fiction prize will stop wondering after hearing this wonderful production. Highly recommended for adult and teen collections.Barbara Valle, El Paso P.L., TX

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2007
Adult/High School-After fleeing a car accident, a middle-aged woman with no ID is questioned by both the police and hospital administration. Refusing to reveal her identity (and proof of health insurance), she instead hints that she is the younger of two sisters, Heather and Sunny Bethany, who disappeared the day before Easter in 1975. This gets everyone's attention. She knows both too much and not enough about the case, leading Baltimore police on wild goose chases to Pennsylvania and Georgia, saying just enough to stay out of jail and keep them interested, albeit suspicious. The narrative threads unravel into the various accounts of that Saturday's events, the aftermath of the disappearance, the investigation, and Heather's own increasingly desperate attempts to evade further disclosure. This novel is a page-turner. Tantalizing revelations are dropped at chapter ends before veering into another part of the narrative, back and forth in time. Characters are well defined and varied, each with a different perspective on the nature of grief. Ultimately, after all of the half-truths and deceptions are played out, unexpected but moving forgiveness wins out."Jenny Gasset, Orange County Public Library, CA"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2007
In 1975, the abduction of the teenage Bethany sisters rattled residents of Baltimore. Now, some 30 years later, a woman who flees the scene of a hit-and-run accident claims to be Heather, the younger of the two sisters. Could this mysterious blonde really be the missing teen, or is she pulling some sort of clever, unspeakably cruel con? Detective Kevin Infante is assigned to the case and must tiptoe around "Heather," who is prickly, smart, and clearly conflicted about cooperating with authorities. In this stirring stand-alone, Lippman, the critically acclaimed author of the Tess Monaghan series, deftly shifts between present and past, intertwining Detective Infante's investigation with the narrative perspectives of individuals irrevocably changed by that fateful spring day. Of particular interest is the girls' adoptive mother, who has since relocated to Mexico in hopes of leaving the past behind. Lippman has received the Edgar, Shamus, and Nero Wolfe awards, among others. Though her ending is a bit of a stretch in this latest offering, the compelling plot and vivid characters prove the author well worthy of honors bestowed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)