Since her debut in 1997, Laura Lippman has won virtually every major prize in the mystery-writing field and earned the highest critical praise for her Tess Monaghan series, which has been called "spectacular" (New York Times), "terrific fun" (Washington Post), "a delight" (Baltimore Sun), and "the best mystery writing around" (Village Voice). Now Lippman steps outside her series to deliver her darkest, most troubling tale -- and vaults into the crime-fiction elite with a haunting story of murder, fate's accidents, and the stories we tell ourselves when we try to make sense of the unthinkable.

On a July afternoon two little girls, banished from a birthday party, take a wrong turn onto an unfamiliar Baltimore street -- and encounter an abandoned stroller with a baby inside it. Dutiful Alice Manning and unpredictable Ronnie Fuller only want to be helpful, to be good. People like children who are good, Alice thinks. But whatever the girls' real intentions, things go horribly awry and three families are destroyed.

Seven years later Alice and Ronnie are heading home again -- only separately this time, their fragile bond long shattered, their secrets still closely kept. Advised to avoid each other, they enter a world where they essentially have no past. In exchange, they are promised a fresh start, the chance to mold their own future.

That promise is broken when a child disappears, under disturbingly similar circumstances. And the adults in Alice's and Ronnie's lives -- the parents, the lawyers, the police -- realize that they must now confront the shattering truths they couldn't face seven years earlier. Or another mother will lose her child.

Homicide detective Nancy Porter was a rookie cop when she solved the original case with a bit of freakish luck -- and almost derailed her own career. Adept at finding the small things that can make or break a homicide case, now she must master the larger picture in order to understand where guilt truly lies. For no one is innocent in this world. Not even the children.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 33 reviews)

Murder Mystery Set In Baltimore

Two eleven year old girls are kicked out of a pool party. As they walk home they encounter a young child in a carriage on her front porch. They think she's being neglected and take her to an abandoned cottage in a park. They think they will care for her as though she's a doll. She quickly gets sick. They conclude that the child is unhappy and then she's suffocated. She was the daughter of a former spokesperson for the mayor who herself is the daughter of a powerful Black judge. The girls are White. The deceased childs mother takes the incident as though it was racially motivated. After serving seven year sentences the girls are released. Another small child very much resembling the original victim is abducted from a mall. Suspicions point to the two girls. It turns out that one of them gave birth while in the states custody to a child who was put up for adoption. The girl was very resentful that her daughter was taken from her. By the end it turns out that one of the girls was unexpectedly manipulating the other all the time. The reader gets a lot of background on the mother of the manipulator, the original dead childs mother, a female police detective, a ambitious female newspaper reporter, and a guilt ridden female lawyer who had originally represented one of the girls. A good quick read. By the way, the second child who was abducted was rescued.
November 14, 2008

Lippman can do better

I loved "What the Dead Know," my first Laura Lippman novel, so I eagerly anticipated reading her again. This one did not pack the wallop of the other book. It was a good read, but fell apart with the predictable resolution. I will give this author another chance, however.
July 15, 2008

Three stars for the story, two stars for the audiobook

Though I was interested enough to finish the audiobook, this narrator's inability to do different voices was distracting and unpleasant. Every voice sounded like a shrieky church lady. The only differential was whether or not characters had southern accents (bad, sharp ones). A Baltimore accent sounded like a comedian's bad imitation of a Brooklyn accent. IT would have been much better if the narrator had just read the story without differentiating voices, she actually had good pacing and tone for the narrative parts of the book.

As for the story, it was not on a par with Ruth Rendell or mystery authors whose psychological studies are much more complex and gripping. On the other hand, I have to wonder if I would have found the book more satisfying with a better narrator.
May 30, 2008

No suspense in this forgettable "novel of suspense"

I decided to try "Every Secret Thing" after reading the promotional blurb and customer reviews on Amazon. It also got great reviews from the literary press. After reading it, am I thoroughly befuddled as to why. There was no suspense in this "novel of suspense" (as the front cover bills it). There's no mystery, either. Well, I take that back partially--while there is a weak psychological mystery at the heart of the story, of why the girls killed baby Olivia Barnes seven years ago, it is so tediously told that it lacks any of the "whodunit" narrative compulsion of a good mystery novel. "Every Secret Thing" is also billed as a psychological thriller, but Lippman's attempts to incorporate the psychological elements are very amateurish and trite. Her characters spend way too much time pontificating on minutiae that have no relation to the story, like a "Seinfeld" episode without the humor. This may be Lippman's attempt to develop her characters, but it's clunky, distracting, and ultimately unsuccessful.

Perhaps Lippman's serial novels are better-written, but "Every Secret Thing" did not deliver on its promise. I stuck with it to the end hoping that some ingenious twist would redeem it, but it never got better. In the words of Simon Cowell, this book is "utterly forgettable."
May 01, 2008

I could see it coming

I could see something wrong with the setup from the start of the novel so maybe that soured it a bit for me. There were a few twists with the Mom, but Alice was too good. Some good twists at the end, but the storyline wasn't that interesting to me with the racist thing going on, in your face, spelling out who's this color, who's that color, who's mixed, defining everyone rich, poor, shoving them into a socioeconomic class as if that makes the book more interesting. For me, it didn't. I was so disappointed because this author's mysteries were highly recommended. If I hadn't been in the emergency room waiting for someone and with nothing to do but read, I am not certain I'd have finished EVERY SECRET THING at all. But I am glad I did, just not delighted with the journey.
September 30, 2007

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