Every Secret Thing by
Laura Lippman
hbk out October 03
Published by Orion
at £17.99
Lippman takes time off from her established and popular private eye series featuring Tess Monaghan (seven titles to date) to explore stand alone territory with this audacious and creepy read.
One hot summers evening, Ronnie and Alice, two eleven year old girls come upon baby Olivia Barnes in her stroller and decide to "take care of her". Four days after, Olivia is found dead in a park hut by rookie detective Nancy Porter. The girls are convicted of the killing. Seven years later the pair are released from detention back into their old Baltimore neighbourhood. When another child goes missing Nancy Porter is given the case.
Lippman capitalizes on our fascination with children who kill and our need to make some sense of such acts. She steadily peels back the layers of deceit to reveal how many of the characters indulge in self-delusion. The story uses several points of view: Ronnie and Alice, Nancy Porter, the baby’s bereaved mother, the social worker, Alice’s mother, a reporter; and the switching works to good effect as we see perspectives and perceptions, and so versions of events, alter. Whose truth is real? Intelligent prose with a fresh and distinctive flavour that is a real pleasure to read and still delivers plenty of shocks. Excellent.
Manchester Evening News 18.10.03
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
Every Secret Thing by
Laura Lippman
