May 17
Much of the last month has been spent reading novels by writers who deserve to be better known they are: John Harvey, Alex Carr and Laura Lippman.
Harvey's relative lack of profile in the UK, where he is eclipsed (publicly at least) by Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson and host of others is all but inexplicable. Perhaps Laura Lippman's case is slightly more understandable, given she is American rather than a home grown author, but her books deserve a much wider audience.
I came across her about three years back when I was offered an interview with her for a piece about women fiction writers I was trying to get the FT to run. In the end they had Karin Slaughter - who is unquestionably far better placed than I am to comment - write it (here's the link, but I think it's behind a subscription barrier) and it appeared in the weekend magazine.
But I was pleased to hear Lippman talk about her craft. She was thoughtful, insightful and passionate about what she did, and we found some common ground over a shared interest in the US Civil War, some of the opening skirmishes of which took place in her home city of Baltimore, where her books are largely based, and to where she pointed me in the direction of a Civil War museum which I haven't visited yet having not gotten to Baltimore in a while.
And as a result of the meeting I started reading her books, and pretty quickly found myself hooked on the Tess Monaghan series, and increasingly enjoying the stand alone novels which in my opinion have given a freer and fuller reign to Lippman's talent.
Is it now possible that one of these novels might be the breakthrough here, as it appears to be in the US? A couple of months ago I was sent a proof, entitled "Little Sister". By the time I got round to reading it (it's published June 21 in the UK) I had received a letter from Orion containing a new cover for the book explaining that because of the overwhelming success of the book in the US, where it became her first entry on the New York Times bestseller list, her publishers had decided to revert to the US name What the Dead Know.
I hope this book achieves a similar breakthrough for Lippman in the UK, as I see no reason why she should not achieve the same sort of recognition as Sue Grafton and Slaughter - the books are well worth it.
I don't personally think this is Lippman's best standalone novel (an award I would hand to Every Secret Thing, an outstanding thriller I found really quite disturbing) but I can see how it has become so successful. It's a very good book, and one that those amongst us who like to be kept guessing while we concoct our own theories will particularly enjoy.
The story starts on the Baltimore Beltway where a female driver, wrapped up in her childhood memories of a city she has clearly not visited for some time, skids on an oily patch of road across the path of an SUV which she inadvertantly clips, flipping the other vehicle over and injuring a child within.
Panicking, the woman flees the scene without stopping - a felony offence - and subsequently parks up nearby where she is eventually arrested. Panicking for a second time, she tells a trooper that she is "one of the Bethany girls" and therefore possibly holds the key to one of Baltimore's most celebrated unsolved crimes: the unexplained disappearance of a pair of sisters from a mall some thirty years earlier.
The woman claims she is Heather Bethany (the "Little Sister") a claim investigated by Baltimore Police detective Kevin Infante, who runs into a series of dead ends, unable to substantiate the claims of a woman he comes to suspect is a fantasist attempting to avoid her responsibility for the injured child in the SUV.
At this point the narrative splits fizzing back and forth from Infante's modern day investigation and the increasingly erratic behaviour of Heather Bethany, to the events that led to the disappearance thirty years earlier and the subsequent agonies of the girls' parents Miriam and Dave.
Lippman's prose is silky and seductive, easy to fall into, hard to put down. The plot moves at a double pace, with the modern investigation instilled with a sense of urgency while the scenes leading up to the disappearance are carefully and comprehensively drawn.
This gives these scenes something of the effect of the slow motion close circuit camera film often shown after a child wanders off (it reminded me of the awful case of Jamie Bolger) where the viewer is given the momentary illusion that they can reach into the screen and stop a tragedy they know to be inevitable. It is painful and heart-rending and Lippman manages these scenes beautifully as she does the subsequent anguish of the parents.
Gradually the pace of the book increases pulling together seemingly disparate strands towards a taut and gripping conclusion.
If you are one of the multitude out there who are not lucky enough to have come across Lippman yet, then why not start here. You won't regret it.