Review: DREAM GIRL, Laura Lippman

• 
  this edition published by Faber UK 2021
  
• ISBN 978-0-571-36098-7
• 308 pages
• author website: http://www.lauralippman.net/dream-girl
  

Synopsis (author)

Following up on her acclaimed and wildly successful New York Times bestseller Lady in the Lake, Laura Lippman returns with a dark, complex tale of psychological suspense with echoes of Misery involving a novelist, incapacitated by injury, who is plagued by mysterious phone calls.

In the end, has anyone really led a blameless life?

Injured in a freak fall, novelist Gerry Andersen is confined to a hospital bed in his glamorous high-rise apartment, dependent on two women he barely knows: his incurious young assistant, and a dull, slow-witted night nurse.

Then late one night, the phone rings. The caller claims to be the “real” Aubrey, the alluring title character from his most successful novel, Dream Girl.  But there is no real Aubrey. She’s a figment born of a writer’s imagination, despite what many believe or claim to know. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry’s life?

And why does no one believe that the call even happened?

Isolated from the world, drowsy from medication, Gerry slips between reality and a dreamlike state in which he is haunted by his own past: his faithless father, his devoted mother; the women who loved him, the women he loved.

And now here is Aubrey, threatening to visit him, suggesting that she is owed something. Is the threat real or is it a sign of dementia? Which scenario would he prefer? Gerry has never been so alone, so confused – and so terrified.

Chilling and compulsively readable, touching on timely issues that include power, agency, appropriation, and creation, Dream Girl is a superb blend of psychological suspense and horror that reveals the mind and soul of a writer.

My take

In her author's note at the end of the book Lippman wrote: This is a book about what goes on inside a writer's mind and it is, by my lights, my first work of horror.

To be quite honest, I did not always think that I would give this novel as high a ranking as I have. That is probably mostly due to the incredible twist in the final pages.

Incapacitated and bed-bound by his recent tumble down the stairs in his Baltimore apartment, Gerry Anderson is reliant on two women for all his daily needs. He is unable to write  and spends most of his time remembering his past, his three failed marriages, the affairs that didn't become marriages, his devoted mother who eventually developed Alzheimer's, and his father who abandoned himself and his mother when he was a teenager, for another family.

All of those memories made the story flit from one time frame to another, and at times I struggled to work out which time frame I was actually in. The author makes the reader work very hard to "compose" the events sequentially.  

However I also think there are times when the story borders on literature, when Lippman shows how well read she actually is, under the guise of a crime fiction writer, taking on the person of Gerry Anderson himself.

My rating: 4.5 

I've also read

ANOTHER THING TO FALL
WHAT THE DEAD KNOW
4.6, THE MOST DANGEROUS THING

Review: THE MOST DANGEROUS THING, Laura Lippman

• published 2011 Harper Collins Books
• ISBN 978-0-06-170651-6
• 342 pages
• source: local library

Publisher's blurb (author site)

Set once again in the well-wrought environs of Lippman’s beloved Baltimore, it is the shadowy tale of a group of onetime friends forced to confront a dark past they’ve each tried to bury following the death of one of their number. Rich in the compassion and insight into flawed human nature that has become a Lippman trademark while telling an absolutely gripping story, The Most Dangerous Thing will not be confined by genre restrictions, reaching out instead to captive a wide, diverse audience, from Harlan Coben and Kate Atkinson fans to readers of Jodi Picoult and Kathryn Stockett.

My take

Some will argue that THE MOST DANGEROUS THING is again not strictly crime fiction (I seem to be reading a few of those recently) and I think it will appeal to many who do not generally read the genre. That said, there is murder, and there is mystery aplenty.

Five children, three boys from one family and two girls from separate families, four of them of an age and one of the boys quite a bit younger, become a coalition, a group. Over a period of three years they explore the swampy forest on the land that abuts their homes. Their parents are busy leading their lives and are not particularly concerned what their children might be up to. Quite a considerable part of the novel details what growing up in these very different families is like. When they are finally and inevitably separated by school, college, or a new house, they and their parents share a secret that the children, and some of the parents, only half understand.

The perspective of the novel is nearly three decades on when one of the five dies in a car accident that could be suicide. Lippman cleverly fills the reader in on the separate paths each of the children have taken in life. The structure of the novel is designed to make you think: from sections labelled GO-GO, US, THEM, and PITY THEM to the occasional time frames used as chapter headings: Summer 1978, Autumn 1979 etc.

So, Lippman probably does achieve what it seems she set out to do: a cross-genre novel that talks about growing up, shared secrets, and things you may find it hard to talk about later in life.

A very interesting read.
My rating: 4.6

Other reviews to check:

• LA Times
• Bite the Book
• Kirkus Reviews

Other Lipman titles I have reviewed on MiP
ANOTHER THING TO FALL
WHAT THE DEAD KNOW

Review: ANOTHER THING TO FALL, Laura Lippman

Orion Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7528-8857-6, 325 pages
#10 in the Tess Monaghan series.

Tess Monaghan becomes involved in the protection of a young star of a television series, Mann of Steel, being filmed in Baltimore. Selene Waite, barely twenty, rather self-centred and seemingly vacuous, has already been the prey of a twisted stalker who then committed suicide. But that's not the only cause for concern - small incidents are happening on the set, and it seems that it won't be long before something really serious occurs. Selene is far from co-operative with Tess and even spikes Tess's drink at a nightclub to get away from her.

From the very start the reader knows, even if one stalker is already dead, there is another watching Selene, taking photos, planning havoc. And then there are the protesters, the steelworkers of Baltimore, who say the television series is not treating their industry with any accuracy, and is riding roughshod over the residents. And what about the ageing Johnny Tampa, playing opposite Selene, who definitely believes the script is being manipulated for her benefit?

I found ANOTHER THING TO FALL very hard to get my head around. It seemed to me to lack focus. There were lots of characters and for a large part of the plot I really didn't know where it was going. This is #10 in the Tess Monaghan series, and lovers of the series will probably be aghast at my criticism. I felt that Lippman has not taken sufficiently into account that the reader may have picked the series up for the first time. I was looking for a bit of background about Tess and her background, and yes, I did get some, eventually. I felt much of the characterisation, particularly of Tess herself, assumed that I had met Tess in earlier books. There are some interesting characters - I loved Mrs Blossom for example - but for many the details are thin, and I actually felt there were too many characters for me to assimilate into one story.

My rating 3.6

I was really disappointed that I didn't enjoy ANOTHER THING TO FALL more, because I have enjoyed other Lippman novels. For example I gave WHAT THE DEAD KNOW a rating of 4.7. Back in 2005 I gave BY A SPIDER'S THREAD a rating of 5.

Reviews by others (who don't necessarily agree with me)

• Crime Fiction Dossier
• Mysteries Reviewed
• Blogcritics Books
  

Laura Lippman's books: the links will take you to her website.

• Baltimore Blues
• Charm City
• Butchers Hill
• In Big Trouble
• The Sugar House
• In a Strange City
• The Last Place
• Every Secret Thing
• Like A Charm
• By A Spider's Thread
• To The Power of Three
• Baltimore Noir
• No Good Deeds
• What the Dead Know
• Another Thing to Fall
• Hardly Knew Her
• Life Sentences

Review: WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Laura Lippman

Hatchette Livre, 2007, 373 pages, ISBN 978-0-7528-8851-4

A woman fails to stop after causing an accident on the icy road of the Baltimore Beltway. She knows she should slow down, stop, check on the other car, but she is close to her exit. Her car is damaged and barely driveable, so she parks it on the shoulder of the road and begins walking. She is stopped by a patrol officer who barely understands what she is telling him when she says "I'm one of the Bethany girls".

Thirty years before the Bethany girls aged eleven and fifteen had disappeared on the Easter weekend from the Mall. There had been few clues about what had happened to them, no ransom note, occasional false sightings, and then silence for thirty years. So if this woman was one of them, where had she been all that time? and what had happened to her sister?

Although the woman seems very familiar with the area and even the facts of the case, we are not sure whether this is information she has picked up from newspaper reports, or whether she really does know things that were never revealed in the papers. Kevin Infante, the detective assigned to the case, believes she is a fraud, but every now and again a niggling doubt creeps in. On the other hand Kay Sullivan, the social worker with whom "Jane Doe" stays while her circumstances are investigated, remembers the panic that gripped the city when the girls disappeared. Her lawyer believes she is one of the missing sisters.

We are all familiar with the scenario with the technique of cold case reviews where new eyes cast over the accumulated evidence draw new conclusions. That's not quite what happens in WHAT THE DEAD KNOW. The present day investigating team are not dealing with all the facts. Some details were deliberately removed from the case files by the former investigating detective. So the current team do not hold all the cards they need. But we learn also that the investigating team of thirty years ago did not have all the information either.

I don't think I've ever changed my mind so often. The plot is cleverly woven, but when all is finally revealed, it is hard to understand why you didn't see the answer right from the very beginning.

My rating: 4.7

In my Progress Report a few days back I wrote about the awards this book has already won, and the other shortlists it has made it on to, so I won't repeat that information here.

In 2005 I read BY A SPIDER'S THREAD, and gave it a rating of 5.
Mark Rubin's family is missing -- and the police can't do a thing because all the evidence indicates that his wife left willingly. So the successful furrier turns to Tess Monaghan, hoping she can help him find his wife and three children. Tess doesn't know quite what to make of Rubin, a wealthy Orthodox Jew who refuses to shake her hand and doles out vitally important information in grudging dribs and drabs. According to her client, he and his beautiful wife, Natalie, had a flawless, happy marriage. Yet one day, without any warning or explanation, Natalie gathered up their children and vanished.
Tapping into a network of fellow investigators spread across the country, Tess is soon able to locate the runaway wife and her stolen progeny, moving furtively from state to state, town to town. But the Rubins are not alone. A man is traveling with them, a stranger described by witnesses as "handsome" and "charming" but otherwise unremarkable to these casual observers, who have no way of sensing the fury beneath his smooth surface.

Progress report: WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Laura Lippman

This week I am reading WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, by Laura Lippman
It has won multis of awards this year, but at this stage I am only half way through and not sure what I think of it.

Here is a list of the awards it has won

• 2007 the Quill Award for Mystery/Suspense Thriller
• 2007 Spinetingler Award for Best Novel
• 2008 Anthony Award for Best novel
• 2008 Barry Award for Best Novel
• 2008 Macavity Mystery Award for best novel

Shortlisted for

• 2008 Duncan Lawrie Dagger
• 2008 Gumshoe Awards
• 2008 Tournament of Books
  

The beginnings of the story:
A woman is found wandering along the side of the road. She has failed to stop at an accident that she should be taking some blame for. In a moment when her mind seems to be a little unhinged she claims to be the younger of 2 Baltimore sisters who disappeared without trace 30 years before.

Here is the blurb from Laura Lippman's own site:

Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?

Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been? Why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved Baltimore cop? There isn't a shred of evidence to support her story, and every lead she gives the police seems to be another dead end—a dying, incoherent man, a razed house, a missing grave, and a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart not only by the crime but by the fissures the tragedy revealed in what appeared to be the perfect household.

In a story that moves back and forth across the decades, there is only one person who dares to be skeptical of a woman who wants to claim the identity of one Bethany sister without revealing the fate of the other. Will he be able to discover the truth?

I'll be back tomorrow or Sunday with my verdict and review.