Her Valiant spins out of control on an overpass sideswiping an SUV. The SUV careens down an embankment rolling over in the process. She knows that she should stop immediately to check on the occupants of the other vehicle, but her fear of being questioned by the police overrides her common sense and drives her to flee the scene of the accident. As she proceeds it becomes obvious that there are significant problems with the mechanics of the Valiant forcing her to abandon her car and proceed on foot.

Predictably, a patrol car with its lights flashing pursues her. The officer driving the patrol car inquires about the Valiant and asks to see her identification. She admits she has none and, when the officer begins to look in her purse himself, he finds that she has been injured in the mishap. As he arranges for her transportation to the hospital, she reluctantly identifies herself as Heather Bethany, the younger of two sisters who has disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall some thirty years ago. The girls had never been found; the case unresolved.

Heather appears to know details about the case that were never publicly released. Yet her story does not quite mesh with the known facts. Heather herself is reticent to reveal much if anything about her present life, actively muddying the waters for the police. She seems concerned about more than being accused of causing injuries to the occupants of the SUV. Though she claims to be Heather Bethany she has no evidence to support such a claim, and she is adamant about not revealing where she has been for the past thirty years.

Laura Lippman is a master at creating enigmatic characters. Though the reader cannot help but being sympathetic to Heather, the incontrovertible fact that she wants to steer clear of the police and is feeding them a combination of truth and lies, encourages the assumption that she is, or has been at some time, involved in illegal activities. A series of flashbacks relates the sequence of events in the lives of the Bethany family that led up to the disappearance and apparent abduction of the sisters.

The police work on the case is revisited and the now retired detective in charge of the case, Willoughby, is consulted. The author creates a hint of suspicion about Willoughby in his obsession with the case and the fact that he has the case files in his possession even though he was only supposed to have borrowed them from the department for a limited period of time.

Although this novel is a stand alone, members of the Baltimore Police Department and lawyers who appear in other of Lippman’s books are key players in What the Dead Know. It is reassuring to know that law enforcement officers and lawyers do adequate enough jobs that they are not replaced with each new major crime in the Baltimore area.

Baltimore itself plays an important role in the plot. The weather, the terrain, the school system, and ethnic populations are critically but fondly examined. Those readers unfamiliar with Maryland will learn quite a lot about the unique conditions and people that comprise the state. The city’s proximity to Washington and the neighboring state of Pennsylvania provide opportunities for plot twists not possible in other locations. There are even distinct differences in parts of the city itself which can elicit situations than could only occur in Baltimore.

Lippman is an extremely talented author who, in this effort, has lived up to her well deserved reputation as a top crime writer who appeals to a variety of reader interests. She not only entertains but educates her audience.

--Andy Plonka