Laura Lippman | LADY IN THE LAKE

Plot (via Goodreads):

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 black 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 jewelry 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.

Review:

This is my third Laura Lippman novel and I can just say, with this setting and these cast of characters - Laura can do it all. The prologue to this one was so haunting and ominous that I was immediately grateful I started this one on a bright and sunshine-filled morning on a Saturday as there was no way I was putting this one down, unless I was reading it at night. Unlike her previous titles, this one sets itself apart by featuring almost a ghost-like aspect to it that is done in an unsettling and non-cliche way.

 I loved that this novel was set in Baltimore in the 60s and to be honest, it was both eye-opening and saddening to see how the character of Maddie and her surrounding world had to deal with racism. Not only was this done with realism, but it also had a sense of compassion that only Lippman could feature within her words. It was also unsettling that some of these issues are still relevant in the world that we live in today and I can only pray some of the ugliness continues to dissipate.

I loved the plot to this story. The way that Lippman just went for it and wasted no time getting to the meat of the story made me completely invested right from the beginning, although to be honest, some of the perspectives of the secondary characters mixed in kind of held me back from enjoying the story fully. At first, I was loving that certain people were mentioned and we got a realistic view into who they were as a person, but around halfway through I found myself going back and skimming certain parts and also having to pause to make notes on my phone as to who-was-who. So while this one took me a little longer to read due to my consistent pauses, it was one hell of a story that in the end I found to be effective, immersive, and chilling. Once the big reveal was completed, I initially felt a "that's it?!" moment only to be shocked once more in its bittersweet and convincingly stunning conclusion. I'm not sure where Lippman is going to go from here, but I know I'll be the first to request a copy.

Special thanks to William Morrow for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4/5