Title: LADY IN THE LAKE
Expected publication: today, 23 July
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description / Blurb:
The revered New York Times bestselling author
returns with a novel set in 1960s Baltimore that combines modern psychological
insights with elements of classic noir, about a middle-aged housewife turned
aspiring reporter who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman.
In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know--everyone, that is, except Madeline "Maddie" Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life.
Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl--assistance that leads to a job at the city's afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.
Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie--and the dead woman herself. Maddie's going to find the truth about Cleo's life and death. Cleo's ghost, privy to Maddie's poking and prying, wants to be left alone.
Maddie's investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life--a jewelery store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people--including the man who shares her bed, a black police officer who cares for Maddie more than she knows.
In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know--everyone, that is, except Madeline "Maddie" Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life.
Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl--assistance that leads to a job at the city's afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.
Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie--and the dead woman herself. Maddie's going to find the truth about Cleo's life and death. Cleo's ghost, privy to Maddie's poking and prying, wants to be left alone.
Maddie's investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life--a jewelery store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people--including the man who shares her bed, a black police officer who cares for Maddie more than she knows.
My musings:
I’ve been wishing for an original but believable mystery to
break a chain of far-fetched plotlines that have plagued my reading lately, and
am happy to report that this book surely delivered exactly what I was looking
for! Actually, if I had to categorise this book, I’m not sure what genre I
would assign to it – perhaps “newspaper mystery” (as the author calls it in her
author’s notes) would indeed be the most suitable, as Maddie, our main
narrator, is an aspiring journalist investigating a crime. However, the crime
is not really the main focus of this intriguing mystery, which unfolds slowly
and reveals a lot more about Maddie’s life and the circumstances that lead to
her “investigation” than the body of the young woman nicknamed the “Lady in the
Lake” in Baltimore. In fact, the very role of journalist is more a way for
Maddie to break out of her confines as a 1960’s wife and mother than a
vocation, though she fits the role very well.
Maddie made for an enigmatic character I could relate to,
and her upper class Jewish background was interesting and something that made
her stand out from the usual fray of tortured souls that represent your more
typical fictional investigator. Maddie had spunk, and I was rooting for her
every step of the way, even though she kept sticking her nose into things that
would cause a lot of trouble – or perhaps because she was not afraid to stick
her nose into things that would stir up trouble! Maddie truly is a rebel: bored
with her stale marriage she leaves her husband and teenage son, moves into an
apartment in a less “desirable” neighbourhood where she can entertain her black
cop lover and inserts herself into a police investigation by writing a letter
to the main suspect of the crime. This may not raise any eyebrows in our times,
but imagine the gossip it engendered in 1966! By choosing a feisty heroine to
tell the tale of an era where women were very much still confined to home and
hearth, Lippman really evokes the spirit of the time her story is set in – I
felt instantly transported into a different world, the virtual travel possibly
more intriguing to me than the actual solving of the mystery.
Ironically, I also really enjoyed the very thing some other
readers found annoying, which was the large number of POVs Lippman uses to tell
the story of the circumstances surrounding the crime. Here we have everyone
from the suspect’s mother, to the victim’s child, to a random waitress and many
more peripheral characters recounting random facts that only vaguely connect
them to the dead woman. I thought this was a very clever way to set the scene,
and it certainly added intrigue and brought the era and the city to life for me.
The victim Cleo herself gets to narrate quite a few chapters, and those formed
part of a very clever web that finally unravelled right at the end of the book.
I was even more intrigued by the story when I found out that
two real life crimes in 1969 inspired the author to write this fictional
version of events, and that some of her characters were informed by real personalities
of the time. In an interview, Lippman stated that as a reporter herself she had
been motivated to write stories about “the kind of people that no one else
wanted to write about”, a trait reflected here in Maddie. For me, these kind of
novels make up the perfect blend between true crime and fiction, and I really
enjoyed doing a bit of digging into the events that inspired this novel. Don’t
you love it when a work of fiction also serves as an educational experience?
Summary:
All in all, LADY IN THE LAKE was an engaging, original
mystery featuring a feisty female protagonist I immediately warmed to and
rooted for all the way. Inspired by two true crimes in 1969 Baltimore, the author
created a rich cast of characters to tell the tale, which made for the perfect
time travel and added depth to the story lacking in many other contemporary
crime novels. I really enjoyed the journey and look forward to picking up other
books by the author.
Thank
you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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