LADY IN THE LAKE
by Laura Lippman

I love a psychological suspense and noir novel that starts with the murdered victim as narrator. It’s even better that Laura Lippman, one of my favorite authors, wrote it. Her last book, Sunburn, was one of my top ten novels of 2018. She hit it out of the park with that one.

In Lady in the Lake, the place is Baltimore in the 1960s. Cleo Sherwood, our first narrator, harangues us as an angry corpse who’s upset that a journalist has unearthed her cold case. Madeleine “Maddie” Schwartz, a woman determined to be more than a housewife and a schlep for the columnist who writes “Mr. Helpline,” sees the Sherwood cold case as a way to build her reputation and maybe nab a good job in the newsroom. Maddi will do just about anything to prove she can be as good as the male journalists. 

Cleo, however, says her time in the lake has eaten her beauty. But that’s not why she doesn’t want to be found. So why would a corpse care? And why be angry at her case being dug up? That is the dark mystery we chase. We hear from those affected—everyone from a patrolman to the suspect. We also see why Cleo has reason to be upset.

This novel is like a broken holographic plate, each narrator a small piece of the whole, offering us a different view of what we’re seeing and how chasing this case affects everyone involved.

The atmosphere of Baltimore in the 60s gives this novel a classic noir feel. Lippman naturally embeds the Jewish culture into the narrative, no lengthy descriptions, no explanations. Jewish life comes alive via the characters and the actions they take. So too the experience of an African-American cop who has had to live his life under the radar. He’s treated differently than his white counterparts. Lippman writes this without drawing attention to it. Instead, it rounds out the characters and their impact on each other.

The Lady in the Lake is a perfect read for those who like their suspense and mystery absent of life switched on with cell phones and computers yet recent enough that it calls forth the dark side of a city about to bust out into a new cynical noir world.

DNF at 25%. I am part of the target audience for this book, so I have given it a rating even though I did not even finish half of it. Firstly, at 25% in we have barely gotten into the story, everything is still being set up. So I am bored. I also don't like even one of the characters, which are very shallowly developed so far, especially the main character Maddie. And there are so many perspectives already, several that seem unnecessary and that are in first person, while the main character's is in third person. The transitions between scenes and character perspectives are sloppy and abrupt - this could just be the galley, but it made it difficult to follow the story line. I had to keep going back to re-read things, thinking I missed something (like when Maddie suddenly wanted to leave her husband). And finally, there is sex like every other page and I am fed up with that. It is all gratuitous and brings nothing to the story and, to me, is a mark of a bad writer. This is the second Laura Lippman book I have read, and I said the same things about that book. I think maybe she is just not an author for me.

Thank you to Faber & Faber for a free digital galley via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

One of my holy grails of off-duty reading is the book that is engrossing without being silly, and packed with good storytelling without looking over its shoulder to make sure we understand how 'literary' it is: Lippman pulls it off. There are two murders but this is not really a crime novel, however interesting the solutions are.

Instead it's a compelling recreation of mid-1960s Baltimore, a time when race was fraught as segregation was being dismantled but when mixed-race relationships were still troubled, whether they involved black, white or Jewish participants. Maddie leaves her wealthy, conventional Jewish husband and comfortable lifestyle, wanting something more, wanting a career as a reporter, wanting to be a woman in her own right rather than an appendage to her husband. Her involvement in two murders is intertwined with her attempts to be taken seriously by the newspaper office for which she works, and conduct a relationship on her own terms - whatever rules society might lay down.

The storytelling is intelligent, the characters deeper than stock traits, and there's an interesting mode of writing that swaps unevenly between Maddie in the 3rd person, Cleo in the 1st person, and assorted characters with whom Maddie comes into contact, telling their own stories to give a wider perspective on both the overarching tale and attitudes and values of the time. Lippman's attention to issues of race and gender, power and transgressiveness makes this feel modern while having its feet firmly in the 1960s. Satisfying and clever, with a sense of how the 1960s looked forward to the future.

I've always wanted to read her work.. and I've not been let down.. this is worthy (although it took me a while to settle with a voice ... whose?) ... interesting theme but what is most interesting is that the two women at heart (journalist and realist black woman, whose body is found) are not easy to like and their circumstances and decisions very realistic too. Maybe a but too meaty in a way, but I'll look out for her again.

Laura Lippman is an author that never lets her reader down. Always and interesting and satisfying read,

In 1965, Mrs. Maddie Schwartz is 37 years old, and she walks away from her marriage and teenage son. Cleo Sherwood is a young, black, single mother who has left her boys behind to find a man to take care of her and her boys. Cleo goes missing, while Maddie pursues a career as a newspaper reporter who is involved in the discovery of Cleo’s body, aka the lady in the lake.
The mystery of Cleo’s murder isn’t as interesting to me as the character, Maddie. Maddie is determined and selfish, and she is used to getting what she wants. She is not a trained reported, but she is determined to be one. While I am cheering for her success in this male-dominated field, I kinda hate Maddie. Similarly, Cleo makes selfish and questionable decisions. As Cleo’s mom says it best:
“When you are very, very pretty you start to think you can get away with so much.”
Thanks Netgalley for the arc of this one. I read this book while in the hospital and home recovering from bilateral mastectomy this week. It was a perfect book to escape my own reality. Maddie and Cleo are imperfect, but smart women who I may not like but cannot judge. Thanks Laura Lipman for creating these women, the nod to your city of Baltimore, and the numerous narrators who really made this book exceptional.

I LOVED Sunburn, Laura Lippman's most recent standalone novel. I was very excited for Lady in the Lake as I hoped that it would carry that noir, gritty vibe that Sunburn did. While Lady in the Lake did not meet my expectations, it was still a fine read.

The premise is an interesting one, and I was excited about the idea of a woman in the 1960s finding marital, sexual, and financial independence. However, there are several aspects of Maddie (the main character) that are never elaborated or developed to their full extent to carry these independence themes through. Even the "lady in the lake" who becomes a narrator throughout the novel isn't explained fully enough for the reader to get a firm sense of her motivations and decisions. Perhaps the constantly shifting narrators throughout (main characters as well as the most minor characters) get a turn at a few pages. While I can appreciate this exercise in fiction, it didn't always satisfy, entertain, nor add to themes. I can appreciate changing perspectives -- which often provide the reader with dramatic irony and a fuller sense of the plot, characters, and setting -- but in this case, I found that I was racing through the minor characters somewhat tangential contributions to get back to the more central storyline. There were aspects of the novel that could have used more description/explanation (such as the actual murder and how the lady in the lake ended up in the lake(/fountain?!).

Much like Lippman's Tess Monaghan series, I leave Lady in the Lake with a "meh."

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

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!

Young people today do not have first hand experience of the prejudices and community divisions that Laura Lippman writes of in this story. She unrolls the story set against the backdrop of an era when people who were different from the majority were treated with calculated indifference. This was the everyday rule of thumb, so the death of "one of them" received no efforts to investigate and solve their crime. The back story and the characters are so well developed, you see them as you read. You will gasp as the tension builds until it snaps, sending you sliding into the ending with a WOW. This one actually deserves to be read twice to make sure you haven't missed anything. I definitely see a movie coming from this outstanding story.

I absolutely adored this book. The mystery was shocking and quite exciting. I really enjoyed the main character and her development. This is the first book I’ve read from this author, but it certainly won’t be my last. Great read!

This was not for me some of the content was just a trigger for things that I can't read I'm sorry to say that because I do love this authors writing style and would definitely try her writing again

Maddie Schwartz is recently separated and ready to become her own woman and live her own life. So she moves downtown, starts shagging it up with a cop, and finds a missing girl's dead body. In her attempt at her new life, and her strong desire to become a newspaper journalist, she inserts herself directly into the investigation (and past life) of the dead girl.

I liked the premise of this book, but there are so so many POV's that, for the first half, I was totally confused. However, I pushed through, and throughout the second half, I did begin to enjoy all of the extra one-time characters POV's more than the main character Maddie's. They were more relatable and livable. I enjoyed how Laura Lippman wrote the historical characters thoughts, being so well written and researched that they were easy to picture. It almost put off a play-like feel for me.

I felt that this was a slow, slow burn with a rushed result.

Thank you to NetGalley, Faber & Faber and Laura Lippman for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 ★ My first book by Laura Lippman proved to be impressive with intriguing mysteries involving two missing persons and a storyline centering on an interesting female protagonist, and a ghost. All happening during the start of the civil rights era in mid 60’s Baltimore where racial tension and the separation of class’s were prevalent.

Baltimore 1965-66, this story centers on two women:
•Mother and soon-to-be-divorced socialite Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz, has stepped away from a twenty year marriage to her wealthy lawyer husband to blaze her own trail. She’s living alone in a blue-collar neighborhood having a risqué affair with a black policeman, and is the finder of a missing little girl’s body.
•And the ghost of Cleo Sherwood, a forgotten young black woman who’s gone missing that Maddie has taken a particular interest in.

Lady in the Lake has lots of mystery and dark thrilling twists, but is also more than that—the female protagonist Maddie is seeking a life the complete opposite than she had in her family’s perfect “hallmark card” Jewish home in a Baltimore exclusive neighborhood. This book follows her quest for change.. that of an independent, liberal, working woman that uses her female assets to get what she wants. I enjoyed following along as Maddie becomes more independent pushing way beyond the boundaries set for women in the 60’s, also by achieving her goal to become a newspaper reporter by being hired as an aide at the Star. The fascinating story behind Maddie’s relentless push to solve who’s behind the disappearance and deaths of Cleo and the little girl was certainly intriguing. Although, I didn’t care for some of the negative ways Maddie went about it—her self-centeredness, manipulation and eagerness to go as far as it takes to get a story (at a high price to others.)

I loved this unique story (ghost included) that kept me engaged with its mysteries, deeply flawed characters, realistic 60’s setting, Maddie’s trip to self-discovery and an ending that, WOW - I never would of guessed. Laura Lippman is now on my go-to-authors list. I’m looking forward to reading more from her. ❥

Thanks to William Morrow Books via NetGalley for sending me a complimentary ARC. All opinions are my own.

As I read this book, I was not sure if I would enjoy the style it is written in. Madeleine, Maddie, Schwartz is the main character in this story and it is basically told from her POV. She narrates a chapter of this mystery, then the next chapter is told from the POV of one of the characters we met in the previous chapter. Sometimes we find out what they were thinking, sometimes they share a secret. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not, actually to be honest, I was a bit confused to begin with. Once I got used to the style, and listened to a few chapters again, I really enjoyed it and thought it brought some realism to the story.

Maddie is recently separated and searching for something to help her become something other than a wife and mother. When a young 11 year old Jewish girl goes missing, her Synagogue sends out search teams to try and find her. Maddie has a hunch and sets off with a friend to a spot where she thinks a body could be hidden, there she finds the body. Using this situation, as well as an intimate friendship with a police officer, she parlays this into a job with the local newspaper. She does not get credit for the stories that come out of this, being a woman, but she does not let that deter her. At the same time, a body of the young black woman is found in the Druid Hill Park fountain. No one seems interested in her death and possible murder, except for Maddie. She uses her connections to the newspaper to investigate and solve the mystery of "The Lady in the Lake".

As I stated above, this story is told from multiple point of views, including that of a ghost or two. It is well written paying careful attention to the time and place. The nuances of Baltimore in 1966 are a large part of this story. It is a well written mystery based on true events. I loved how Maddie did not give up when fighting for what she believed and the rights of women. Even though the format of the book was very different from anything I have read before, I enjoyed the story because Laura Lippman did a wonderful job developing the story and characters. Make sure you read the author's notes at the end of the book as she shares some heartbreaking information that influenced and assisted her in writing this book. This book is fiction, but it is based on two actual murders that occured in Baltimore in 1966.

The book is told by different characters. Maddie is married to a lawyer and seems to have a perfect life. She hasn't been happy in a long time though and decides to leave and go out on her own. She gets a job at a newspaper and starts answering letters that other journalists aren't interested in. She reads a letter about a fountain that isn't lighting up and decides to look into it. She finds a woman's body and she then begins investigating. The woman is named Cleo. Cleo tells some of the story from her point of view too. Maddie is obnoxious and there are several times I stopped reading the book because of her. At times it's hard to follow and understand what's going on. After trying again and again to get through it, I just couldn't finish reading it.

This was an interesting read. Maddie Schwartz has been married for many years which was arranged and is bored in her marriage as well as in her life. After she leaves her husband she is trying to make a name for herself as journalist. A woman is found dead and no one seems to care. This book had a lot of intriguing aspects, I just wish it wasn't told by many, many different points of view.

*Thanks so much to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review

In 1960s Baltimore, newly divorced, former high-society housewife Madeline Schwartz is finally "finding" herself. She also finds herself, in a literal sense, encountering much more gritty parts of the city, and along with that some intel on the murders of a couple of young girls - which she spins into a developing career as a newspaper reporter, interviewing sources close to the story to try to find out what happened. But it's not just a story of a budding reporter uncovering a crime. Maddy's secrets and somewhat conniving ways make for an interesting psychological twist, where you sometimes wonder if she really cares about these victims, or if she just wants to make a name for herself at any cost. Once I got used to the format, I really liked how the storyline about Madeline worming her way into a job as a reporter and going after the story of the "lady in the lake" (a young black woman whose death had previusly gone almost unremarked by the newspapers) would be followed by a chapter that was from the perspective of someone she encountered in that chapter - a waitress, another reporter, even a baseball player who was in the news. They would just chime in with their own voice this once each, but it made for such an interesting way to get another angle on the story. Overall, you get quite a noir feel, plus an interesting historical context of 1960s era Baltimore in terms of the race relations, gender inequalities, organized crime, and even just the setup of a newsroom/the way reporters did their jobs in that era. Reminded me a little bit of Little Deaths, a book set in that era that I really liked but never saw mentioned much.

I really enjoyed Ms Lippman’s Sunburn and was excited to read this unusual noirish novel centered around the idea of "eight million stories in the naked city.”

Set in 1966 in Baltimore, the novel centers on Maddie Schwartz, an attractive middle-aged Jewish housewife. Her marriage is dull and her life has little meaning, but a chance meeting with an old school friend spurs her into leaving her family and seeking out a new life. Convinced that she can get what she wants from any man, she turns her discovery of a dead girl into a junior role at a newspaper. Driven by ambition, and entirely focused on herself, she uses the mysterious death of a young African American woman to kickstart her journalist career.

The author does not create a particularly sympathetic main character: Maddie is a terrific portrait of a narcissistic and entitled woman who does not really know herself. But I rooted for her toughness and her determination in not taking no for an answer in an era in which the lives of middle class women were often narrow and confined

Interspersed into Maddie’s story is commentary on it by Cleo Sherwood, the dead woman. Cleo is far more perceptive about the damage that Maddie is wreaking on those close to her and to those close to Cleo, by pursuing this story. This foreshadowing that Cleo provides gives a hardbitten inevitability to the story which doesn't quite play out in the end.

There are also short vignettes from people whose lives Maddie touches fleetingly, from a man who makes a pass at her at the movie theater to a baseball player at a game she and her lover go to. Most of these add a tweak to Maddie’s story but these characters come and go, never to reappear.

Having read three of Ms Lippman’s novels now, I’m still not entirely sure that I could pin down her style. Her focus on strong women, ones who have to make their own way even if it’s at someone else’s expense, is appealing though, and I’ll certainly look out for more.

Thanks to Netgalley and Morrow for the digital review copy.

I received this book as a Net Galley reader in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Harper Collins Publishers and to Laura Lippman.
I heard Ms. Lippman’s interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air right before I was about to start reading The Lady in the Lake. Hearing Ms. Lippmann share her personal experiences and thoughts made me want to read this book even more. I really enjoyed the inside details of working for a newspaper because I learned Ms. Lippmann and her father both worked for The Sun. Ms. Lippman and Terry Gross talked of a line about the story of one’s death as compared to the story of one’s life and that made the line more impactful to me when I read it. I love books with insight into real life through the lens of a fictional character. This book was filled with so many statements and reflections on life.
I had a hard time getting into the format at first. There are chapters and points of view of many characters. Some “spoke” only once. After getting used to it, I found this method of writing to be very creative. After finishing the book, I re read the first part of it and it meant so much more to me than when I first read it. Maddie Schwartz starts off appearing like a bit of a stereotype and then develops into a more complex character with remainders of “who she was” that she cannot shed. The answer to the mystery in this book took me by surprise, which isn’t an easy thing for a writer to do these days. The ending was a great one and many of the character resolutions were satisfying to me, as the reader. They were good endings but not happily ever after. The characters all lived with the scars of their life choices. I highly recommend this book. I think it deserves a second read through to pick up on all the details the reader misses the first time through- just like a good movie. There are so many themes- race, gender equality, how women identify themselves, politics and motherhood are just some of them. If you enjoy a book with depth, powerful writing and a mystery then add The Lady in the Lake to your bedside table.

Really great historical mystery! This was well written and I loved the setting in 1960s Baltimore. Enjoyed the multiple perspectives and writing style.