![]() ![]() ![]() Sunburn (2018), her second consecutive novel to win the eDunnit Award at Crimefest, was. And, as much as this is an atmospheric suspense story based on two true-crime cases, it's also a compelling female adventure tale of Maddie, at mid-life, coming into her own amidst a rich historical depiction of 1960s Baltimore. Set in Baltimore, Lippmanās home stomping grounds, Lady in the Lake covers just over a year, from October 1965 to November 1966. Laura Lippmans novels have won many crime fiction prizes, including the Edgar, Anthony and Agatha Awards. Chandler's The Lady in the Lake was a middlin' novel but Lippman's is a stunner, one that not only gives voice to that murdered 'lady in the lake,' but to a diverse crowd of Baltimoreans: Narrators include a jewelry store clerk, a beat cop and a player for the Baltimore Orioles. ![]() ![]() Cleo is the still center around which her living counterpart, a white Jewish woman named Maddie Schwartz, frantically orbits. For me as a reader, what's incontestable is the power that Lippman bestows on Cleo's post-mortem voice and presence. Lippman has already weighed in in interviews and articles about her controversial decision as a white writer to adopt the voice of a black woman as one of her main characters. And that's not Lippman's only act of appropriation. Laura Lippman's new suspense novel is called Lady in the Lake, a pretty straightforward purloining of the title of Raymond Chandler's fourth Philip Marlowe novel. ![]()
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