This book perfectly wove together mystery, historical fiction, and women’s fiction. They didn’t happen in the same year. Entertaining the reader wasn't the point. I think he invented the cliche of a coshed character who wakes up with a dead body in the same room. Refresh and try again. The book was … High marks from start to finish. by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. In her newest, “Lady in the Lake”, Lippman, who always writes novels inspired by true crime, bases her story on two murders that happened in Baltimore in the 1960’s. c. Muriel Chess More than one person around her pays for that. In her newest, “Lady in the Lake”, Lippman, who always writes novels inspired by true crime, bases her story on two murders that happened in Baltimore in the 1960’s. And although Maddie is given more page time than Cleo, Cleo’s desires feel surprisingly clearer and more relatable, even if she is narrating from beyond the grave. Chasing down the mystery man, or woman, wasn't the point either. Laura Lippman: Is it ok for a white author to write black characters? The arc of Maddie’s character — her mid-1960s “journey,” if you like — reflects the gulf which then existed between what women were expected to be and what they aspired to be. While I didn’t always agree with Maddie’s methods, I completely understood her plightt. It started off promising, the voice of the Lady in the Lake beginning the story. Lippman combines historical fiction with her love of Baltimore in her latest crime thriller. Lady in the Lake. I have read a lot of the Agatha Christie novels, but somehow I missed the ones that were written by men. And as for the murder of Cleo Sherwood? I came across this little treasure when I was browsing through the local public library. And the best part for me is there was a big unexpected twist I did not see coming from a million miles away. Trouble is, when Philip Marlowe asks Lavery about it he denies everything and sends the private investigator packing with a flea lodged firmly in his ear. In her novel, she connects them with her main character, Maddie Schwartz. A single bright star glowed low in the northeast above the ridge of the mountains. Laura Lippman is a New York Times bestselling novelist who has won more than twenty awards for her fiction, including the Edgar Award—and been nominated for thirty more. This well may be Chandler at his very best! Wonderful. LitHub named her one of the “essential” female crime writers of the last hundred years. Where is Crystal Kingsley? It’s the Lady in the Lake who opens the story, in fact, and it’s Cleo’s ambivalence about her place in what James Brown called a man’s, man’s, man’s world that sets the tone of this angry but craftily crafted book. ‘Wilde Lake,’ one of Laura Lippman’s finest novels, feels personal. She gets a small apartment downtown, a black boyfriend, Fergie, who happens to be a cop, and a job at the afternoon newspaper, the Star, where she answers readers’ questions in a public help column. In her NPR interview she is clear that she doesn’t base her novels on facts of the crime, just the crime itself.