I reviewed Laura Lippman’s Sunburn last year and found it to be an excellent femme fatale story. So, I picked up Lady in the Lake (William Morrow, $26.99) and from the jacket description was expecting another bad–girl thriller. Unfortunately, Lady in the Lake is not very thrilling, and the bad girl is not all that bad, just bored with her husband.
It’s 1966, a time of social upheaval. Maddie Schwartz, on what looks like a spur of the moment decision, leaves her 18-year marriage and moves into a dodgy apartment in a newly integrated section of Baltimore. Other than finding her husband dull and being a housewife unchallenging, there doesn’t seem much reason for leaving, especially when she is abandoning her teenage son, who becomes embittered over losing his mom. Perhaps another explanation is the secret Maddie has been hiding concerning her first boyfriend. The revelation of this subplot is the best part of the book.
Maddie wrote for her high school newspaper and thinks that qualifies her for a job at The Baltimore Sun and is laughingly rebuffed, but when a young girl goes missing, Maddie joins the search party and decides to look in a park where she used to go necking in high school. She finds the body, calls the police and leverages the discovery into grunt work at the newspaper. Maddie is a frustrating character because she can be incredibly dumb yet relentless in her obsession.
Lippman gives us about 20 different points of view, including one scene in the POV of a Baltimore Oriole outfielder at a game Maddie has come to watch — surely one of the most pointless scenes in all thriller literature, perhaps an attempt by Lippman to delve deeper into the era. Despite questioning some shady characters there’s no real danger for Maddie and the twist at the end is one which I kicked myself for not figuring out, because I started skimming. You probably will if you pay more attention. So save your money and hope Laura does better next time.
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