Life Sentences by Laura Lippman

Synopsis:  Writer Cassandra Fallows achieved critical and commercial success with an account of her Baltimore childhood growing up in the 1960s and a follow-up dealing with her adult marriages and affairs. She follows her memoirs up with a poorly received book of fiction, leading her back to nonfiction and the possibility of a book about grade school classmate Calliope Jenkins. Jenkins was accused of murdering her infant son, and spent seven years in prison declining to answer any questions about the disappearance and presumed death of her son. Fallows tries to reconnect with three former classmate friends to compare memories of Jenkins and research her story but finds they are reluctant to talk to her and in fact, slightly hostile.  Fallows is thus led into a spiderweb of stories, secrets and lies before finally coming to the truth.

I actually liked this book but at times wanted to, once again, throw it across the room (hoping to injure the characters within).  What is with these damn main characters who are vile?  Ugh!  Don't let that stop you from reading this one though, it actually has a pretty good plot and definitely moves along.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

So my latest is from an author I had never read. She's got lots of best-sellers and good reviews. Here's the synopsis for this one: "A driver who flees a car accident on a Maryland highway breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of the young Bethany sisters at a shopping mall—after she later tells the police she's one of the missing girls. As soon as the mystery woman drops that bombshell, she clams up, placing the new lead detective, Kevin Infante, in a bind, as he struggles to gain her trust while exploring the odd holes in her story. Deftly moving between past and present, Lippman presents the last day both sisters, Sunny and Heather, were seen alive from a variety of perspectives. Subtle clues point to the surprising but plausible solution of the crime and the identity of the mystery woman."

I liked this book. It had a good bit of suspense and mystery and for the most part I was caught by surprise with the ending. What I didn't like about this book was the way it shifted back and forth from past to present. I didn't feel like it was a smooth enough transition and I kept having to flip back to see who the hell I was reading about. Now, understand too that I've had a lot of distracting things going on so maybe my attention span is a bit lacking. Like I said though, it was, for the most part, a good read and a satisfying mystery. I have another book by this author in my collection and I will certainly read her again so that's something.