Lady in the Lake: A Novel

Written by Laura Lippman

Narrated by Susan Bennett

SOON TO BE A SERIES FROM APPLE TV!

2020 Audie Awards® Finalist - Thriller/Suspense

The revered New York Times bestselling author returns with a novel set in 1960s Baltimore that combines modern psychological insights with elements of classic noir, about a middle-aged housewife turned aspiring reporter who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman.

In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know—everyone, that is, except Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she’s bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life.

Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl—assistance that leads to a job at the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.

Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie—and the dead woman herself. Maddie’s going to find the truth about Cleo’s life and death. Cleo’s ghost, privy to Maddie’s poking and prying, wants to be left alone.

Maddie’s investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life—a jewelery store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people—including the man who shares her bed, a black police officer who cares for Maddie more than she knows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jul 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062390134

Laura Lippman

Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her teenager.

Reviews for Lady in the Lake

[Emily Lassiter Branch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There's so much going on in this book. It's a mystery, but it's also about a woman having a mid-life crisis (back in the days before we had a name for it) and trying to forge a new life for herself. It's told from multiple points of view, and with flashbacks. As the central character, Maddie, works toward her goal of becoming a reporter (with no journalistic training), the multiple points of view show the things she's caught in her investigative efforts - as well as the things she's missed. For me there was also a nostalgia factor - set in 1966, I could relate to much of it as my mother was right around Maddie's age at that time, and I was about the age of Maddie's son. But it's not a sanitized version of the time, sexism and racism are both well-represented, as are the roots of changing attitudes. Overall I enjoyed this one - it isn't exactly a happy book, but it was well worth the read, both for the writing and for the story. (And as a sort of homage to Marjorie Morningstar, which I've read a couple of times but long ago - it's moved my planned re-read up my TBR list.)

[Madeline McDowell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

They are filming this tv series in my neighborhood in Baltimore. I liked all the local references and thought the audio narration was enjoyable. The story was alright, pretty engaging but overall a lot of fluff. Twist in the story wasn’t very predictable which is good.

[bogopea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

1960's Baltimore era noir about the murder of two females and the newspaper reporter who was determined to find their killers.

[Pprbkwrtr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is terrific, timely, and compelling fiction and one of the best-narrated audiobooks I've ever heard. I was hooked right away and finished this in record-time, because I didn't want to put it down.

[Dayna Bennett · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Soooo, hmmm. The writing is excellent, obviously. But I just didn’t like the protagonist-
Not because of the choices she made. I celebrated her seeking freedom and seeking a voice of her own. But we never see any growth in her. We never see her move past the past,
Or do anything other than poke at other people’s lives as a way of dealing with her own mistakes.
She never expressed any emotion other than desire and maybe some guilt and even that was blasé. I just couldn’t find a reason to care about her. The character I found more interesting was Cleo, and her resolution was a tad unclear. So, not my favorite.

[Debbie Braaksma Karambowich · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Laura Lippman does not disappoint this was a great book!

[Leigh Linden · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent!! I enjoyed the setting and time period. There descriptions seemed real yet elegant.
The story comes together nicely, not too predictable. An excellent read!

[dandiercks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A reasonably good mystery with enough twists to keep me reading. For the kind of book this is, the writing is impressive. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t one of the better books I’ve read recently.

[ana2theresa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved the story and loved the reader. The characters were so believable and intriguing. Sad it was done.

[Gabriela Prokopowicz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book . Many unexpected characters which aren’t obvious . Interesting read

[ahef1963 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Laura Lippman doesn't disappoint. This is, I think, the fourth novel of hers that I've read, and I've enjoyed all of them. Lippman's books are invariably set in her beloved home town of Baltimore, and that the city is full of crime and vice seems to be an integral part of the Baltimore she has lived in and adored her entire life.When I was much, much younger, a young teen, my family's summer excursion to Myrtle Beach took us through Washington, DC, to the National Cemetery in Annapolis, and through Baltimore, where we got stuck in a late-afternoon traffic jam on the wrong side of town. There were women dressed oddly, skirts so short they barely existed, fishnet stockings and long boots despite the July heat, plunging shirts and too much lipstick. My father, when I asked, told me that they were prostitutes, and when I asked for a definiton of prostitute, he hedged and told me that they were women who sold their bodies. Unfortunately I thought that this meant they had bits of their bodies cut off - a finger here, a toe there, maybe an ear - and was terrified by this idea for years.So in some way I've always felt kinship with the seedier sides of Baltimore, where Lippman's murders take place, where women are raped, where strippers peel off clothing and where prostitutes roam. It doesn't seem like a good place to be a woman, and that's the Baltimore that appears in Lippman's books.Lady in the Lake is set in the mid-1960s, and is the tale of Madeline Schwartz, a well-off Jewish women dissatisfied with her life and her marriage. At the age of thirty-seven she leaves the suburbs and moves into the inner city, where she finds a murdered girl, and then a murdered woman. She joins a newspaper which is reluctant to hire her, lives in a neighbourhood where white women are a minority, and starts sleeping with a black police constable. Maddie always goes too far, and can't be stopped by reason or by the risk of danger, so her continued insistence on writing about a murdered black woman gets her noticed by the wrong people, gets her in trouble at the newspaper, and does, actually, put her life in peril. It's a good book, and it's insightful. It saddens me that so little has changed in racial relations in the United States. What happens in this 1960s scenario is still playing out across the nation.Negatives about the book? I found it hard to get into, but that's me, anxious lately, and finding it difficult to settle into a story. I would like it if the Yiddish words that were used in the book were translated by means of a footnote or a glossary. Otherwise I am more than satisfied. I enjoyed the many narrators of the book, and I liked the twists and turns that lead to a wholly unexpected ending. Most importantly I liked Maddie. She has goals, she wants more than to take care of a man, she is driven, she is the woman of the future.

[Kathy Flaming · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Too slow for me :(. Tried so hard to get into this book

[knittingmomof3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An exceptional work of literary prose and historical fiction.

[Dayna Ross · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book. It was an easy listen, and had some good twists in it.

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Laura Lippman says in an author's note that she did not intend “Lady in the Lake” (2019) to be a newspaper novel, but sometimes you really do write what you know, even if you are an experienced novelist. And Lippman was a newspaper reporter in Baltimore before she became a bestselling author, so she knows the territory very well.“Lady in the Lake” may be one of the best and most unusual murder mysteries you will find — unusual because virtually every character, no matter how insignificant, becomes one of the many narrators. Yet always at the center of the story is Maddie Schwartz, a beautiful 37-year-old Jewish housewife who feels her life rushing by, leaving all her potential behind her. Potential for what, exactly, she doesn't know because she has no obvious talent, other than wrapping most men around her finger. But she decides to leave her wealthy husband — and her teenage son — and strike out on her own.The novel, set in 1966, has two murders that are unrelated except that they both happen in Baltimore and both draw Maddie to them. She finds the body of girl, then provides evidence leading to the murderer. And this she turns into a low-level newsroom position at a Baltimore paper. Struggling to become an actual reporter, she begins investigating another murder that nobody else either at the newspaper or the police department seems to care about.That's because Cleo Sherwood, called "the lady in the lake," was black. But Maddie does care, partly because she hopes the story will launch her career but also because of a hot affair she is having with a black police officer, Ferdie. At that time in Baltimore black officers, like women approaching middle age working for newspapers, have little chance of advancement. They aren't even trusted with patrol cars. Yet Ferdie learns things that provide valuable tips for Maddie. The rest of her success depends on her own gumption and her refusal to take no for an answer.The novel describes how an amateur reporter solves two murders without even trying — she's after stories, not killers — yet in Lippman's hands this hardly seems unlikely at all. It is, in fact, highly entertaining. The final reveal, however, does seem like a stretch, not that it will spoil the reader's enjoyment.

[maydacat_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Maddie is a housewife and mother in the 60’s. But she is not a typical one. She had to do something with her life; she had to matter. To that end, she leaves her husband, manages to get a job with a newspaper, and lands some rather unusual interviews. She is clever, and lets nothing stop her from getting where she wants to go. It is not smooth sailing, not by a long shot, and some people are hurt in this process. The story is rather ingeniously told from several points of view. Characters come in sometimes for only one chapter, and while this may seen confusing, it is not. It adds depth to the setting of Baltimore in the 60’s and brings in several aspects of the history of that time. Still, it is a murder mystery, even if the characters’ lives and their actions force the mystery into the backseat. Like many good mysteries, the ending brings a twist. Readers of all genres will enjoy this tightly written book, but audio listeners will have the added pleasure of the wonderful performance of Susan Bennett whose narration brings much to the story.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Just did not appeal.

[patsymurray · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

She built the suspense up wonderfully and then it all ended in a dull, unrealistic muddle.

[sjgirl-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

With Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o signed on to star as Maddie and Cleo in an adaptation of this book, I wrongly went into this expecting the focus would be split evenly between those two characters.Cleo is barely featured, her POV is lightly sprinkled through the book, necessarily brief I guess for plot reasons still it’s disappointing that she ultimately plays such a small role considering her connection to the title.Maddie is the most prominent character in the book however the story is told from several points of view beyond hers. I don’t have a problem with multiple points of view when it feels like there’s a legitimate reason for them and if they’re moving the plot forward but far too often these POV’s (including Maddie’s) veered into territory that didn’t seem particularly relevant to the mystery of the lady in the lake. The newspaper aspect of this as well as gender and race in the sixties held my interest, but for the most part the deep dives into (sometimes random) characters got in the way of this being the suspenseful page-turner I’d hoped to read.

[purple_pisces22 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book did not work for me. I’ve had to really think about this review and I am honestly at a loss and I had to go back and make sure it really was written by Laura Lippman. I’ve always enjoyed her work and I’m not exactly sure why it didn’t work. I realize the story takes place in the 1960s, but I don’t feel That many of the characters actions were typical of that time and they were not really explained. Maddie, the main character, left her family to be a reporter. Maybe I missed it, but I I don’t recall reading if this was a lifelong dream of hers or what her reasoning behind this was. I’m sure that were many women in the past who did things not typical of the time, but like I said this just didn’t work for me.
On top of this, this the suspense was completely lacking. Even in a basic fiction book there are moments that are suspenseful - not necessarily scary but still have you sitting on the edge of your seat. I did not come close to the edge of my seat throughout the whole book. Even the “scary” moments were odd to me. Nothing really seem to fit. I guess that’s my bottom line.

[rglossne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Changing attitudes about women and race are at the core of this murder mystery set in 1960s Baltimore. Maddie Swartz is a privileged and sheltered housewife who ditches her marriage of 20 years to pursue a more passionate and meaningful life. Her curiosity and her instincts put her at the center of two murder investigations. The first results from the discovery of the body of a missing child. The second,The Lady in the Lake, refers to a body of a young black woman found in a fountain whose murder is not at the top of anyone’s priorities, because she is black. Maddie’s pursuit of answers is the core of the novel, and changes her life.

[romonko · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit I had high hopes for this book, and for the first 2/3 they were almost being met. i thought the book was a solid 4 stars, and I was eagerly turning pages. But when I got to the last third, the air was blowing out of the balloon. The book lost momentum for me, and I just couldn't wait to finish. I thought all had been explained and let's end it already. And then we got to the final two chapters, and wow! I did not like the way the book ended at all. It didn't help that I didn't like any of the characters and I certainly couldn't relate to any of them. Madeline especially was a total narcissist. Her behaviour was never explained satisfactorily either. By the end of the book I couldn't stand her. What I did enjoy at first were the many points of view that were used to tell the story. I found it was very thought provoking, and a cool way to move the plot along. That wore thin after awhile. This is the second book that I've read from this author and I was totally disappointed with both of them. I cannot recommend this book at all. Nor will I read another book by this particular author.

[shazjhb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyable book. Interesting characters and twists.

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The title might make you think this is a book about the Lady in the Lake, but that is only part of the story. The book is actually about Maddie Schwartz, who after many years of marriage, realizes that she is no longer in love with her husband, and wants more from life. Finding herself separated, and on her own, not able to afford the life she was accustomed to, she realizes she needs a job. This comes after she discovers a dead girl, and she corresponds with the killer. She gets a job at the local newspaper, which ignites a desire in Maddie to want more. She wants to be a reporter. She digs for stories, but in 1996, women reporters are not in demand.This is a period piece set in Baltimore, and highlights racial divisions (Christian vs. Jew, black vs. white) prevalent in the 1960s. I enjoyed the writing, the Baltimore locations, and the struggle of a woman trying to find her way in the world. I also liked the underlying story of the murders of 2 young women - and the surprise at the end!#LadyInTheLake #LauraLippman

[robertalea-223265 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There were many, many plots and twists in this murder mystery. I did not even come close to figuring out the who done it and why. I sure enjoy Laura Lippman's style.

[kbranfield-837433 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in Baltimore in the mid 1960s, Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman is an intriguing mystery with an unusual premise.

Madeline "Maddy" Schwartz is a dissatisfied wife who abruptly decides to leave her marriage. Moving into a shabby apartment, she is disappointed her teenage son does not want to live with her.  With little financial help from her soon to be ex-husband, Maddy rather creatively devises ways to fund her new life. After discovering the body of murdered eleven year old Tessie Fine, Maddy sets her sights on a career as a reporter at the Star. Starting at the bottom, she begins investigating the death of Cleo Sherwood, a young black woman.  With the detectives little interested in pursuing the case and the media ignoring the death, Maddy is certain finding out what happened to Theo will finally convince the newspaper to promote her to reporter.

Maddy is not exactly the most sympathetic or likable character. She is impetuous and ambitious and she rarely thinks about how her decisions will affect those around her.  One of Maddy's best qualities is her lack of prejudice and although she is investigating Theo's death for her gain, she is truly upset by the lack of interest by the police and the media.  Unfortunately Maddy is only concerned about her own future and some of her decisions lead to unintended consequences for the people in her life.

While Maddy is the main narrator, many of the chapters are written from secondary characters' perspectives.  Chapters from Cleo's ghost are often acerbic and disdainful of Maddy's efforts to uncover the truth about her death. These entries are quite interesting and add to the suspense surrounding her death. The other chapters are short vignettes from very minor characters and these entries add very little to the story.

Lady in the Lake is a very unique mystery but the pacing is slow and many of the characters are not easy to like.  Laura Lippman brings the time period vibrantly to life and she deftly tackles racism, classism and sexism with sensitivity.  With plenty of suspense surrounding Theo's disappearance and young Tessie's murder, the novel comes to a very unexpected, twist-filled conclusion.

[ml923 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have loved all of Lippman's books that I have read, and this one is no exception.

[jepeters333 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know--everyone, that is, except Madeline "Maddie" Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life.Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl--assistance that leads to a job at the city's afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie--and the dead woman herself. Maddie's going to find the truth about Cleo's life and death. Cleo's ghost, privy to Maddie's poking and prying, wants to be left alone.Maddie's investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life--a jewelery store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people--including the man who shares her bed, a black police officer who cares for Maddie more than she knows.

[sblock_16 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book got good reviews but didn't click with me (and I'm usually a Laura Lippman fan). I just didn't care about the main characters. The multiple voices didn't help.

[alphawoman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Surprisingly to me, I liked Mattie. Story was okay. Liked the unusual way of interspersing a chapter about a peripheral character.