Showing posts with label Laura Lippman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laura Lippman. Show all posts

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Book Review: EVERY SECRET THING (Movie Tie-In Edition)

EVERY SECRET THING
HARPCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins; @WmMorrowBks

AUTHOR: Laura Lippman
ISBN: 978-0-06-241140-2; paperback (June 2, 2015)
448pp, B&W, $14.99 U.S., $18.50 CAN

Every Secret Thing is a 2003 crime novel from bestselling author Laura Lippman (After I'm Gone).  The book was adapted into a crime film, also entitled Every Secret Thing, by director Amy J. Berg and writer Nicole Holofcener, which received a limited theatrical release in May.  William Morrow, the HarperCollins imprint, released a paperback “movie tie-in” edition of Every Secret Thing with cover art that referenced the movie poster and some of the actors featured in the film.

The novel opens seven years before the main body of the story.  It introduces two 11-year-old girls, Alice Manning and Veronica “Ronnie” Fuller.  After being banished from a neighborhood birthday party, Alice and Ronnie find a stroller with an infant inside on an unfamiliar Baltimore street.  What happens after the girls' discovery is shocking and terrible.  There is irreparable devastation to three separate families, and the incident changes lives and careers.

Seven years later, Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller, now both 18, are released from juvenile facilities a.k.a. “kid prison.”  Ronnie begins her life over again, or tries to do so.  Alice aimlessly wanders various neighborhoods.  When another child disappears, the unanswered questions about the original crime return to haunt the parents, lawyers, and police involved in the disappearance and the investigation that followed.  The truth about what happened then and is happening now will be devastating to everyone, but in different ways.

It took me over two months to read Every Secret Thing.  It is a well-written novel, engaging and often absorbing.  However, Laura Lippman is a queen of the killer-ending.  The whodunit and why-they-did-it are never simple and are full of twists and turns.  To say that the endings of her books are shocking seems not to tell the whole story.  Let's just say that Lippman writes resolutions and conclusions that reward her readers for starting her books.

The reason it took me so long to finish Every Secret Thing is that Lippman pulls no punches.  Yeah, I think “pulls no punches” is a phrase that perfectly describes the way Lippman depicts relationships – familial, personal, and professional.  Some might call some of these relationships toxic, but they capture the rough edges and dark corners that define relationships as much as love and need do.  There were times when I thought about just stopping, putting aside this book and not looking back.  Laura Lippman keeps it too real... sometimes, but as a reader, I guess I wouldn't really have it any other way.

My main complaint about the book is that there are simply too many characters, even for a book that runs over 400 pages.  Sometimes, this novel feels like an ensemble drama composed entirely of bit players.  Even Alice and Ronnie occasionally seem estranged from the narrative.  This makes the novel seem disjointed as Lippman introduces and drops characters, re-inserting them in a disconcerting fashion that makes the narrative a bit awkward in places.  Still, the spine of the story – the connection of the child kidnappings – is strong and powerful stuff, because Lippman deals in strong and powerful characters, plots, settings, and angles.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.



Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Book Review: AFTER I'M GONE

AFTER I'M GONE
HARPCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins; @WmMorrowBks

AUTHOR: Laura Lippman
ISBN: 978-0-06-208341-8; paperback (August 12, 2014)
352pp, B&W, $14.99 U.S.

After I'm Gone is a 2014 crime novel from Laura Lippman, The New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know.  A paperback original, After I'm Gone is the story of how one man’s disappearance echoes through the lives of the five women he left behind:  his wife, his three daughters, and his mistress.

Felix Brewer saw Bernadette “Bambi” Gottschalk at a Valentine’s Dance in 1959, and it was love at first sight.  Felix charmed Bambi with wild promises, and because of his lucrative, but largely illegal business ventures, he was able to keep some of those promises.  Felix, Bambi and their three little girls:  Linda, Rachel, and Michelle lived in luxury.  However, Felix eventually ended up convicted and facing prison time.  On July 4, 1976, Felix mysteriously vanished.

Felix also had a mistress, Julie Saxony a.k.a. Juliet Romeo.  Everyone, including Bambi, thought Julie knew where Felix or his money was.  However, on July 4 1986, Julie disappears.  Her remains are eventually found on or about September 23, 2001.

On March 2, 2012, twenty-six years after Julie first went missing,  Roberto “Sandy” Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective who works as a consultant for extra cash, opens a cold case, investigating Julie's murder.  Sandy is about to enter a tangled web that connects five intriguing women, with Felix Brewer at the center.  Sandy is determined to find the truth, but can he unravel about five decades of history and three decades of intrigue?

The mystery of Felix Brewer's whereabouts is really not especially important to After I'm Gone.  The murder of Julie Saxony makes this book crime fiction and a murder mystery, but the whodunit is not as important as the women of Felix Brewer.  Yes, it's the women of the missing man who are crucial to this novel.

The truth is that After I'm Gone is an exceptional work of fiction and a superb read, beyond being a good murder mystery and semi-police procedural.  I have read and listened to critics who have described things as “delicious.”  I didn't every think that I would describe something as delicious in a review, but...  The women of After I'm Gone are delicious characters.  My imagination dined on them for 300-plus pages and could have gobbled another 300 pages.

There is nothing about this book title or about its cover and graphic design that suggests the surprising tragedy and shocking plots twists that Lippman offers in this hugely engrossing novel.  If this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner is a better read than After I'm Gone, it will have to have been conceived by a divine mind.

A+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.