SOON TO BE A SERIES FROM APPLE TV!A New York Times BestsellerThe revered New York Times bestselling author returns with a novel set in 1960s Baltimore that combines modern psychological insights with elements of classic noir, about a middle-aged housewife turned aspiring reporter who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman. In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to … psychological insights with elements of classic noir, about a middle-aged housewife turned aspiring reporter who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman.
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: Cleo Sherwood, a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.
If Cleo were white, every reporter in Baltimore would be clamoring to tell her story. Instead, her mysterious death receives only cursory mention in the daily newspapers, and no one cares when Maddie starts poking around in a young Black woman’s life—except for Cleo’s ghost, who is determined to keep her secrets and her dignity. Cleo scolds the ambitious Maddie: You’re interested in my death, not my life. They’re not the same thing.
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 Ferdie, the man who shares her bed, a police officer who is risking far more than Maddie can understand.
more
Dull
IT WAS GOOD
The POV in this book was strange to me. I am okay with multiple POV’s and with ghosts, but it was confusing to me, trying to keep everyone straight. It could be because I listened to the audio, instead of reading a printed copy. The slow build up was just too slow for me, though I have enjoyed other books by this author.
This may be her best book yet. So creative.
I loved this one so much, I wrote an entire blog review (https://www.joannaelm.com/why-i-read-laura-lippmans-lady-in-the-lake-in-one-sitting/ ) about it
Loosely based on two real events in mid-sixties Baltimore, this plot-twisting mystery features a young woman reporter-wannabe obsessed with a pair of curious murders. Albeit different media and genres, tart noir Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz bears character traits similar to comedic Miriam “Midge” Maisel of TV fame. Both are young Jewish women who break from traditional marriage molds to pursue independence in careers dominated by men. The combination of an engaging yet flawed protagonist; a culture steeped in racist, sexist, and religious divergence; and a danged good mystery make this novel a must-read winner.
The title might make you think this is a book about the Lady in the Lake, but that is only part of the story. The book is actually about Maddie Schwartz, who after many years of marriage, realizes that she is no longer in love with her husband, and wants more from life. Finding herself separated, and on her own, not able to afford the life she was accustomed to, she realizes she needs a job. This comes after she discovers a dead girl, and she corresponds with the killer. She gets a job at the local newspaper, which ignites a desire in Maddie to want more. She wants to be a reporter. She digs for stories, but in 1996, women reporters are not in demand.
This is a period piece set in Baltimore, and highlights racial divisions (Christian vs. Jew, black vs. white) prevalent in the 1960s. I enjoyed the writing, the Baltimore locations, and the struggle of a woman trying to find her way in the world. I also liked the underlying story of the murders of 2 young women – and the surprise at the end!
#LadyInTheLake #LauraLippman
This book is extremely well written with a silky smooth plot. The different characters telling their own stories makes it easy to connect with each one of them.
This book was great, a good read and page turner. Not predictable at all and written in an interesting style.
Lady in the Lake is a slow burn novel that is hard to categorize by genre. This is a murder mystery and I believe it was listed in the mystery/thriller section, but I think it would be best labeled as historical fiction because the murders are more a framework for a story about Maddie than the real thrust of the novel.
Following multiple people from very different backgrounds as they navigate 1960s Baltimore, Lady in the Lake is an interesting look at racism, misogyny and class. There are point-of-view chapters for almost every character in the book. This was a different way of showing bias from many perspectives, and demonstrating that we all see the world through our own lens; what we see might not be what our neighbor sees and experiences.
Lady in the Lake also shows the push and pull of reporting. Maddie is attempting to be a reporter, doing what reporters do by delving into a victim’s life and death. But multiple other characters opine that Maddie has no right to do so, that the dead should be permitted to lie. That Maddie is hurting people by investigating. However you feel about that, it certainly is relevant to reporting, past and present. How much are citizens entitled to learn after a crime, or when something occurs in a public place? How much information is relevant to public safety and how much is merely salacious voyeurism?
What I found most successful about the novel is that Lady in the Lake demonstrates life in the 1960s, yet most of us will recognize that not much has changed in ensuing decades.
This book will be best enjoyed by those interested in historical fiction about the 1960s than those anticipating a mystery.
Content Warnings: abelist, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic language; statutory rape
The opinions in this review are honest and my own. #LadyInTheLake #historicalfiction
Laura Lippmann consistently delivers top notch suspense that pays homage to Baltimore.
Beautiful 37 y.o. Maddie Schwartz leaves her devoted husband and son because she yearns for something more. But what she gets decidedly less of is money, so she sets her sights on earning a reporter’s position at the Star. Her determination and chutzpah in investigating the disappearances of Tessie Fine and Cleo Sherwood finally get her what she wants, but she loses two men’s devotion in the process.
Told from multiple points of view—primarily Maddie’s, but also Cleo’s and a multitude of others she encounters—Lady in the Lake is a page turner. Manipulative Maddie is not an entirely sympathetic character. Tess Monaghan’s parents are part of the story, and this reader wonders if Tess was named for the murdered Tessie.
1960s Baltimore, as portrayed by Lippman, is the most intriguing part of the novel, though.
This book is both a mystery and the story of a woman who wants to break out of her life as a housewife to follow her dream of being a reporter. Maddie Schwartz gives up her comfortable lifestyle and her home to follow her dream. She gets involved in the search for a missing girl and this launches her into her first newspaper job. She finds an apartment in an area that isn’t quite good, but is all that she can afford. I will say that she is relentless in following what she believes to be a good story and when her backstory is revealed it is not what I expected. I can’t say that I loved Maddie, but I did enjoy the mystery and the detail of this book.
I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from William Morrow through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
A train wreck of a jungle fever dream. Wholly unsatisfying and more than a little offensively racist.
This book has a little bit of everything in it so it should appeal to a wide audience. The book’s style was different than I’m used to reading from the author. Many characters Maddie meets narrate their own chapter which adds great depth to the story. I recommend this book if you like reading about the 60’s as I do.
Very entertaining read. However, sorry to see the many-times-used stock ending. Not a very satisfying payoff.
How many bloody points of views can one book have? I mean, how the hell is a reader supposed to keep up with the likes of Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman when every other chapter has a new character? Can you tell this isn’t going to be a good review?
We start with a death. A woman’s body has been found at the bottom of a fountain, the “lady in the lake”. While you’d assume the story would continue to be told in first person by that woman who died, Lippman switches it up. We then go to another woman, Madeleine “Maddie” Schwartz. She seems to be a perfect, normal housewife. But she is unsettled and bored with her life, on the cusp of leaving her marriage. Resolved to become a reporter, Maddie starts a job at a local newspaper.
As you’re slowly, I mean slowly, being dragged through these chapters, one has to be wondering what the connection is between these two woman are? What does Maddie’s story and that of a dead woman have anything to do with one another? Well, it gets even more difficult by the alternating chapters narrated by different characters that Maddie confronts throughout the story. Many of the characters who narrate appear to have nothing to do with the story. Although there are others who add insight into the life and death of the “lady in the lake” many of the narrations make it difficult to dissect whom you need to keep track of, and who you don’t.
Eventually we find out the woman in the fountain is an African-American named Cleo Sherwood. And let me add, that revelation only comes with the pace of snail towards the end. And just like that, with a gimmick, we find out why and how these two stories converge. In an unbelievably slow burn, we also come to terms with the self-discovery of Maddie, as she realises what she wants in life and how she can achieve it.
I’m assuming at this point you’ve realised I really didn’t like this book. I’ve made it clear in other reviews, I hate writing negative reviews, but this book was definitely not for me! Had it not been given to me as an ARC by the publisher, I never would have read it. Let’s just get all the negative stuff out there and say, I’m wholeheartedly not going to read another Lippman book again. Her writing style is not for me at all.
On a positive note, Lippman’s writing is stunning. She truly has a way with her words, and I felt like I was brought back into that era by her writing. If she were to lose the writing style — each chapter being a different narrator — and even lose the gimmicky ending, this could have been a fantastic mystery. There was so much potential in this book!
In many ways there’s no such thing as a bad book, but rather books one didn’t enjoy. I didn’t enjoy Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman. From too many POVs, to a gimmicky ending, I found this book to be disappointing. While the book did preserve my interest throughout, the negatives outweighed the positives. I’m going to have to pass on this book. It just wasn’t for me!
Thank you to William Morrow and Laura Lippman for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.
Read my full review here: https://bit.ly/2kI3lrY
DNF at around 30%.
I liked the premise of this story. I really, REALLY wanted to like this. A psychological “mystery” set in the 1960’s with themes of race, class, religious beliefs and gender equality is what I THOUGHT I was getting.
Instead, I got a painfully slow narrative with multiple POVs (at times it took as much as an entire page to realize who was speaking), stilted dialogue and one dimensional characters.
On one level, this is a story about a reporter breaking a murder mystery. And it’s a great one, but it’s more than that. It a book about race. It’s a book about women’s lives. It’s a book about making your place in the world. About wanting more than you’re supposed to, figuring out how to get it. Sometimes awkwardly, sometimes clumsily, because there’s no rule book for breaking out of your box. Laura Lippman tells so many truths here, but with such an artful sleight-of-hand that it never is preachy. A great read. Also, can’t imagine any book club in Baltimore not selecting this book. It would be, like, a crime.
I eagerly picked up this book and have loved many of the past Laura Lippman stories. I can only give this one a 3. It just moved to slowly. The main character, Maddie Schwartz, a women at midlife and separated from her wealthy husband. Maddie has left to pursue her own identity. She begins to do just that, meeting a cast of characters who become part of the story: Ferdie, an African American cop who cannot succeed in the force due to his race, a Jewish jewelry store clerk seeking her true love. Maddie is determined to become a reporter, and pursues two stories. One involves the disappearance and murder of a beautiful African American woman named Cleo Sherwood, the other the murder of a young Jewish girl Tessie Fine. Maddie pursues these stories with little regard on the affects this will have on the families and players. At times Maddie’s single-mindedness makes her unlikeable. My main objection with this story was the length — too long by far — and the frequent shifts in perspective from one person’s point of view to another made the writing feel choppy. While the story is certainly different, I can’t really say I loved it.
What a great book! There were some surprising twists and turns in here! I wasn’t sure what to really expect based on the title but I really liked it. Thanks for such a great book!