On Easter weekend in 1975, the Bethany sisters went to the Mall, and disappeared. Thirty years later, a woman gets into a car accident, and is found walking down the road with no money or identification. She is taken to the hospital, where she admits to a social worker and a detective that she is Heather Bethany, the eleven year old girl who had disappeared.
And thus begins the suspenseful book “What the Dead Know” by Laura Lippman. When I was contacted about reviewing this book, I knew right away that it would be my kind of story-a good mystery with detailed characters and a surprise twist for an ending. And I was not disappointed. I sat down to read this book one Saturday morning, and did almost nothing else until I finished it the next afternoon. I found myself compelled to find out how these two girls had come to disappear from a Mall, and what brought the surviving sister back to her hometown on the day of the accident.
The book jumps back and forth from the present back to the past, showing us who the Bethany family was, the problems in the parents’ marriage, the secret reason why the two girls went to the Mall that day. It took me a few chapters to get into the rhythm of jumping back and forth like that but once I did, I found myself having to hold myself back from skipping ahead to get to the conclusion. I have read other reviews that said the ending was predictable, but I didn’t see it coming at all.
If you like mystery/suspense novels, this book is worth picking up and reading. The author has also written a series called the Tess Monaghan Mysteries, I’m looking forward to reading those as well. Thumbs up!
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