Monday, July 1, 2019

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman


Eliza Benedict has a life she loves.   After several years in London, her husband has recently taken a job back in the States and the family has moved back to where Eliza grew up.  Eliza has her ideal life, being a wife and a mother to her two children. 

But all is not as wonderful as it seems on first glance.  Decades ago, when Eliza was fifteen and known as Elizabeth, a tragedy occurred that separated her family's life into before and after the event.  Elizabeth stumbled on a killer and he kidnapped her, knowing that she saw too much for him to let her go.  He kept her for several months and she grew to know Walter Bowman better than she knew anyone else in her life.  She was reunited with her parents after Walter killed one more girl and was caught.  Her testimony put him on death row, where he has remained for all these years.

Until now.  Suddenly all his appeals are exhausted and the entire nightmare is coming up again.  Eliza, who never has told anyone except her husband about the event, is shocked when she gets a letter from Walter, letting her know he knows exactly where she is.  What does he want?  He isn't the only one who wants things from Eliza.  There is a woman on Walter's side, his advocate, and she seems unbalanced and willing to do anything to get Eliza to fill Walter's requests.  There is the mother of the last victim, who resents Eliza for living and wants to be sure she doesn't do anything to help Walter.  The only person who isn't sure what they want is Eliza. 

Laura Lippman worked as a journalist for the Baltimore Sun before she started writing crime novels.  Her second career as a novelist has been a successful one, and she has won both the Edgar and the Anthony for her work.  Her novels center on the Baltimore area and she seamlessly gets into the heads of those women she writes about; women who face life and death dilemmas through no fault of their own.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

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