Bunny Lake a disparu

by Evelyn Piper

Disparition inquiétante ou monumentale machination ?

Blanche Lake, jeune mère célibataire, débarque à New York avec sa fille de trois ans, Bunny. Parce qu’elle doit travailler, Blanche laisse, le cœur lourd, son enfant à l’école maternelle pour la première fois. Le soir, lorsqu’elle vient la récupérer, Bunny est introuvable. Le plus stupéfiant étant que le personnel affirme n’avoir jamais vu la fillette. La police, chez qui se rend immédiatement la mère de famille, ne la prend guère au sérieux. Pire, elle la soupçonne de mentir et de mettre en scène un enlèvement.

Quête hagarde et hypnotisante dans un New York des années cinquante à l’atmosphère hitchcockienne, ce roman aux accents féministes est un chef d’œuvre de machiavélisme et de suspense.
Evelyn Piper est le pseudonyme de Merriam Modell (1908-1994), autrice américaine de thrillers. Bunny Lake a disparu est le plus fameux d’entre eux et a été adapté par Otto Preminger.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Noir, Crime, Pulp, Novels

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1957

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ridiculously over-the-top domestic noir from the onetime queen of pulp Evelyn Piper (aka Merriam Modell) who started out publishing short stories in the New Yorker but later made her name as a commercial thriller writer. One of her most popular novels, this revolves around two mothers, one Mrs Negrito is an older, immigrant whose teen son Eddie may harbour sadistic, psychopathic tendencies; the other, at the centre of Piper’s narrative, is 21-year-old Blanche Lake. Blanche has a three-year-old daughter known as Bunny. After Blanche moves to New York from a small town, she enrols Bunny in nursery school, keeping her existence a secret from her neighbours and employers because this is America in 1957 and Blanche is a single mother, and Bunny’s father a married man. But when Blanche goes to collect her child at the end of the school day, she’s nowhere to be found, and as events unfold it becomes increasingly clear that nobody around her from the police to a local psychiatrist thinks that Bunny ever even existed.

Piper’s fast-paced story takes place over the course of 24 hours in central New York, after a promising, tautly-drawn beginning, it becomes increasingly frenetic and increasingly bizarre. Piper’s take on the cultural anxieties and conventions of a deeply patriarchal era features some intriguing elements, with a hint of underlying subversive, seemingly-progressive ideas. And the male characters are convincingly unsympathetic: the sceptical police at Blanche’s local precinct, the patronising psychiatrist who’s more interested in Blanche’s good looks than he is in her plight. Piper’s also adept at depicting the seamier side of New York life, urban alienation and the dangers that lurk on its gleaming streets after dark. But as her plot progresses it spins more and more out of control, scattered with unhinged, nightmarish scenes like outtakes from a Sam Fuller "B" movie: from a deeply unsettling encounter in a local dolls’ hospital to the erratic, sinister behaviour of a writer acquaintance of Blanche’s.

Piper raises potentially interesting questions about gender and authority, but seems too keen to dwell on the more fantastical possibilities afforded by Blanche’s predicament, and her ultimate choice of villain completely undermines the more overtly feminist aspects of her novel. There’s also an unconvincing romantic subplot, and the dubious storyline involving Mrs Negrito feels shoehorned in. But for all that I found it a definite page-turner, if only because I wanted the answer to the question everyone around Blanche was asking, is Bunny real? Or is she a figment of Blanche’s fevered imagination? This was also transformed into a cult film by Otto Preminger, although his adaptation – which I’d recommend seeking out - set in sixties London, has very little in common with Piper’s original – it’s much tighter, disciplined and far more coherent.

Rating: 2.5

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A horror vision of the anxiety of being a single working mother in the 1950s.

(June 2016:)
Not a perfect book, but very suspenseful and enjoyable. It got really good when it questioned reality, truth and sanity. There is a lot of mid century psychology here (it is from 1957). And it has a cool ending.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fucking idiot. I just erased this review for a second time after re-writing it again.

Fuck that. The original was genius, think James Joyce mating with TS Eliot and you will not even get close to the greatness of the first sentence.

I'm not even trying again.

To paraphrase:

The book was entertaining, and good for a couple of hours of amusement.

The book is not high literature, nor would this person with a penis say is it a feminist book.

Academics would say it is, but they need to make a name for themselves.

As a whodunit the book cheats by with holding pieces of information.

I rambled on about some other things, and used some awesome phrases that you would want to tell your co-workers tomorrow at the water-cooler since you're still a day away from repeating the latest versions of "That's What She Said" from a new episode of The Office.

[charlie medusa · Rating 2 out of 5]

première moitié brillantissime j'étais premier degré chockbar d'à quel point c'était captivant et subtil tout en étant obvious, c'est OK pas besoin de faire des mystères sur tes intentions pour être extrêmement puissant et efficace dans ton propos !! j'aime beaucoup. hélas dans sa seconde moitié le livre se rappelle qu'il a été écrit dans les années 1950 et passe complètement à côté du formidable dénouement ultraféministe qui aurait pu être le sien pour nous servir l'habituelle soupe désir hétérosexuel médiocrité masculine montrée mais non analysée et rivalité féminine tiédasse avec bouc émissaire de femme vieillissante à la clé. BREF. le sayer est d'autant plus gros que la première moitié m'avait vraiment donné l'espoir de l'innocence et de la joie. la vie est ainsi faite quand on lit des livres des années 1950.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 rounded up.

This novel is quite good, with a lot of it playing out in the main character's mind and reflecting a subtext of social anxieties re motherhood and societal judgments in the 1950s.

Picture this frightening scenario. A young mother has come to pick up her three year old daughter after her first day at preschool. Since Blanche Lake hasn't been at the school before except just once while dropping off her child Bunny (real name Felicia) earlier that same morning, she doesn't know any of the other mothers waiting there and, while waiting for her own little one, watches as all of the other kids make their way to their parents. A search of the school and conversations with teachers and the people in charge reveals that absolutely no one remembers even seeing Bunny that day. The police are called in, but soon it becomes apparent that even they are having trouble believing that little Bunny ever existed -- especially since there is nothing in Blanche's apartment to show that a little girl even lives there, not even a photograph. In fact, anything that might help Blanche to prove to the cops that she does indeed have a daughter is simply non-existent, not helping Blanche's case at all. When Blanche catches on that everyone thinks she's making all of this up, she sets off during the night on a bizarre, at times surreal sort of adventure through the streets of New York looking for her child or at least some sort of proof that there even is a child.

But of course, there's way more than just the search for a missing child here. When all is said and done, Bunny Lake is Missing is a fine novel that examines motherhood, sexuality, the changing lives of modern women, and societal judgments just as much as it is a crime story. There is much more, of course; in the edition I have there is an entire analysis in the back of the book which will shed even more light. It's a very dark story that had me wondering if in fact, there really was a Bunny Lake, or, as is suggested, something horrific had happened to her. While the ending (and the unraveling of the story) may leave a bit to be desired, the crime aspect of this novel, it seems to me, isn't really the point at all.

recommended but do NOT expect the film, which has only a tenuous (at best) relationship with the novel.

http://www.crimesegments.com/2016/04/...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the critics were in general less than impressed by it, I much enjoyed Otto Preminger's 1965 creepy psychological thriller Bunny Lake is Missing, with Carol Lynley, Laurence Olivier, Keir Dulleia, Martita Hunt, Noel Coward and all. I'm not sure why I've left it so long to lay hands on its 1957 source novel. Now that I have, it's in my mind to track down more of Evelyn Piper's works, you bet.

Unmarried mother Blanche Lake comes to New York from Providence, RI, with her own, disapproving mother and her two-year-old daughter, Bunny. She finds a job quickly enough, then finds a nursery to look after Bunny during working hours. But, arriving to pick up Bunny at the end of the child's first day at the nursery, Blanche discovers she's gone missing. Worse than that, no one seems to have the slightest memory of her ever having been there, or indeed of Blanche having made the arrangement.

The cops -- especially after they discover Blanche's apartment bears no trace of Bunny -- come to the conclusion that Blanche is deluded, an unfortunate who, unable to have a child, has, so to speak, dreamt one into existence. That's the conclusion, too, of the psychiatrist the nursery's principal introduces to Blanche, Dennis Newhouse, although he promptly starts to fall in love with her, which complicates matters. (They're complicated even more by the fact that he's already in a relationship with said principal!) Everything points to the fact that the cops, Newhouse and others are right. Meanwhile further circumstances -- involving happenstance, bad luck, conspiracy, malice -- accrue to reinforce the skeptics' opinion.

To cap it all, Blanche's mother, who'd of course be able to vouch for Bunny's existence, has gone back to RI on urgent business and can't easily be contacted.

Will Blanche be able to surmount the high walls of universal disbelief and locate her little girl before anything dreadful happens to the child? Or will Blanche be clapped in Bellevue?

The movie made a good number of changes from the novel, aside from shifting the venue to London from NYC, and leaves quite a different taste in the mouth. Despite my liking for the screen version, I have to say that I really prefer the novel.

Part of this preference is due to those different plot decisions but most of it's due to the telling. Piper brilliantly portrays the paranoia and terror of Blanche facing all those usually kindly but incredulous people she encounters over the course of a long and harrowing night. Yet the author does more than that: she captures perfectly the speech patterns and erratic behavior of someone who might indeed be deluded about reality. The result is that, all the while we're in Blanche's head and panicking with her, we're simultaneously wondering if maybe, just maybe, she genuinely is delusional -- if Bunny perhaps really is just a figment.

It's an astonishing balancing act on Piper's part, and it makes for a white-knuckle read -- above and beyond the fact that, if there's a real little girl and she really has been abducted, naturally we share Blanche's fears on that score. Even though we're certain Bunny will escape unscathed, we can still identify with and share that parental terror over a missing child.

The novel's not perfect. The denouement (which differs radically from the movie's) seems a bit contrived. Blanche's love for her daughter is overplayed: she seems not so much to dote on Bunny as worship her wet diapers -- to the point that we wonder if there might not be something in Blanche's mother's view that Blanche isn't really cut out for motherhood. And towards the end there are some elements of melodrama that didn't entirely convince me.

But these are minor concerns. Bunny Lake is Missing had me enthralled from start to finish . . . and what a finish. The last few lines carry a twist to one of the subplots that's a real humdinger -- a cliffhanger, in effect, that offers a perfect emotional conclusion to the tale.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

BUNNY LAKE was an enjoyable page-turner that kept me guessing.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew! A great claustrophobic and paranoia fueled read. For the most part the close third narrative stays within Blanche's POV. She is the mother whose daughter, the Bunny Lake of the title, has gone missing after having been dropped off at nursery school. The novel takes place in the span of less than 24 hours and the progression from waiting to pick-up Bunny, to searching for her, to interacting with the police, and then others as the situation spins rapidly out of control is intense as we are locked into Blanche's head as she goes through the whole experience. What really takes this novel over the top is that Piper (Modell) also shifts the narrative POV at key points to other characters and rather than going objective third she stays in close third so that we experience the events from these other character's also out of control head and emotional space. And those shifts also provide an alternative viewpoint to Blanche's perspective, which cleverly plays with the reader's sense of identification with the character whose point of view we began the journey with. This technique amps up the emotional tension over and over at the same time as the physical action in the novel is also escalating toward a climactic conclusion. A brilliantly constructed suspense thriller.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the characters were, no doubt about it, familiar types, the disconcerting premise and insistent tension fixed my attention and compelled me to read the novel though in one sitting. It's a straightforward premise--a three-year old child vanishes on her first day at nursery school, and her mother is soon suspected of insanity when she cannot procure evidence of that child's existence--but the convolutions of plot that make such a scenario possible do tease out fascinating questions about society's estimation of mothers and motherhood. Who deserves to be a mother? What should a mother do in duress? What identifies a woman as a mother, and what other aspects of identity might overtake the maternal? The novel is set in the mid-twentieth century and focused on a single mother, the very beautiful and very young Blanche, only just settled in New York City with her baby daughter, Bunny, and her disapproving, socially-humiliated mother, working in an office, inadvertently presenting herself more as an unfettered young woman than as maternal figure. Blanche is first contrasted with the mothers at the nursery; they are older, fatter, plainer, and inured to the charms of their children in a way that marks Blanche's naive loveliness as faintly suspicious. The young woman remains in an optimistic, gently musing state as her child fails to exit the school with the others, and she progresses through increasingly unlikely justifications to explain to herself why Bunny has been delayed. It is only when she begins to interact with authority figures, from the addled orange-smocked teacher to the school's imperious director to an increasingly unsympathetic series of police officers that she realizes how desperately she lacks credibility, how she has seemingly done nothing that a mother should do, whether that is the minor act of carrying photographs in her purse or the major act of procuring a husband. Blanche's past, too, begins to haunt the narrative, as she draws others into her search and is forced, again and again, to explain herself. . .

[Suvi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I wonder where people find words for all the funny things inside their heads. I keep turning around in circles and finding how well things fit together, but nothing is ever complete. I think if I could tell someone everything, every single thing, inside my head, then I would be gone, and not existing anymore[...]"

A young single mother, Blanche Lake, goes to pick up her daughter from daycare. She's not there, and no one has any recollection of her. Within the next 24 hours, it seems as if Bunny has disappeared into thin air or that she never existed. Her quest to find her and convince people she's not mad is tense, noir-ish, and kind of bizarre (the doll hospital, the psychiatrist...). It's one of those melodramatic mid-20th-century paperbacks I love and definitely want to have more of in my bookshelf.

If you can't find the book, Otto Preminger's movie adaptation is fantastic. Set in London instead of New York, it's not faithful to a T, but it does have great performances and captures the story's mood.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve heard the term pulp fiction but did not really know what distinguished it from regular fiction categories. After reading the Publisher’s Forward of this book, I am still not clear about the difference. The Publisher’s Forward talks about women writing pulp. It is interesting explaining how there were plenty of women who authored pulp fiction books but had to publish those using pseudonyms. It also explains where the term pulp came from. This story was originally published in 1957. The edition I have is from First Feminist Press published in 2004, as part of their Femmes Fatales series. That is what drew me to get the book.

A young woman who is a single mother in 1950 NYC goes to pick up her little daughter from a nursery school and is told the little girl is not there. The woman freaks out and begins a desperate search for her little girl. Everyone she questions, including the police cannot help discounting her as a hysteric. Every part of her story is disbelieved as her frenzied search goes on and on. Because of the times, being unmarried, she had to keep her daughter a secret from her co-workers, landlord and neighbors. In the meantime, a neighbor woman suspects that her son may somehow be involved in the little girl’s disappearance. She goes on her own distraught search. Two creepy guys come into the picture claiming they will help the young woman. At this point, the story becomes a bit odd. One of the creeps is a psychiatrist who falls in love with her. The other is a writer whose parts became sort of gibberish and made no sense to me.

Throughout the story, there is a sense of frenzy and feverish anxiety. Is the woman crazy or is there a nefarious plot by everyone she encounters? Terrific writing where you are in the mind of the young woman and at times her thoughts are not complete and scrambled.

[Morgan Lentz · Rating 3 out of 5]

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING

BOOK VS MOVIE: the movie was so much better.

I love this movie all the way down to the last 10 minutes when it kind of becomes a hair-brained mess. The rest of it is a suspenseful masterpiece. Imagine what I thought was my luck that I noticed in the credits that it was based on the novel by Evelyn Piper. I bought the book but didn’t read it for a long time. I finally picked it up and read it in a few hours.

******** spoilers below ***********

This book is erratic at best.

I gave it three stars because of the anxiety and paranoia it stirs in me reading about Blanche’s harrowing journey trying to find her daughter.

The way Blanche is treated by the men in this book is ghastly. Yes, I get that she is looking for a child that no one can prove ever existed to begin with, but everyone in this book is pretty terrible to her.

The entire book takes place in one day. Blanche claims she dropped her daughter Bunny off at school in the morning and comes back to pick her up and Bunny is nowhere to be found. And also, no one can seem to remember ever seeing her. The more the story progresses you learn that literally no one has seen the child. Not the school, not anyone at the apartment building, or the grocery store, etc. Blanche’s story is that they have just moved to the city and they don’t know anyone yet and that’s why no one has seen Bunny.

So then you start to think maybe the child isn’t real. It’s a little weird, right? That there isn’t a single person in the whole city that can ever recall seeing the child?

In comes Dr. Newhouse, a psychiatrist sent by the lady at the school to discuss the situation with Blanche. Dr. Newhouse apparently finds Blanche so attractive that all of his schooling, logic, and reasoning are tossed right out the window. He claims to be trying to help Blanche but the more he does, the less he believes her story. But he spends the bulk of his time with her patronizing her because she’s just that pretty.

Then we meet Mr. Wilson, who Blanche thinks might have at some point seen her with Bunny. This man locks her in his bedroom so she can “rest?” She, who is clearly either completely distraught at the idea her daughter is missing, or completely neurotic imagining a child that doesn’t exist is missing. Either way – she needed HELP which she did not get.

She escapes out of his bedroom window – with his handgun.

Blanche is running all over trying to get the police, the doctor, the guy at the doll hospital, etc., to help her and no one will. And you feel her start to lose her mind.

Then Dr. Newhouse blurts out that he LOVES her. I’m not even kidding.

Like, really? In the five hours you’ve known her, you love her? You, who (1) are supposed to help people in questionable mental states and (2) who think Blanche is completely bonkers, you are going to jump off the deep end and say that you love her? As if she doesn’t have enough going on?

The wrap up to this book is disappointing to the point it’s almost disgraceful. It feels like they throw an unknown character in just to have an excuse to have the child disappear to be able to write the rest of the story.

[rabbitprincess · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title says it all in terms of plot, really. Bunny Lake, the three-year-old daughter of Blanche Lake, has been sent to her first day of nursery school, but she isn't there when Blanche comes to pick her up in the evening. Panic-stricken, as one would be in those circumstances, Blanche immediately sets to searching for Bunny, even though it starts appearing as though Bunny doesn't really exist. A chilling thought indeed.

The narration was excellent, ably illustrating Blanche's frantic state of mind as the night wears on (the story takes place over less than 24 hours) and no sign of Bunny. We also get a very good idea of the thought processes of Dennis Newhouse, the psychiatrist who is skeptical of Bunny's existence (he keeps bringing up the Jimmy Stewart movie Harvey) but at the same time becomes enamoured of Blanche herself. Iss Wilson, a writer who also happens to be a friend of Dennis, is perhaps not quite as interesting but still plays a key role in the proceedings.

Because this story held my interest throughout (I had to know what the real story was with Bunny!), I gave it a full four stars. If I had considered knocking a half star off if would have been because I did find myself getting kind of confused at times when it came to figuring out how much time had elapsed, but that could also be something Blanche experienced. Time seems to slow down when horrifying things are happening, and this situation would definitely qualify for her.

Some may consider the ending predictable, but given what Blanche goes through I think we can allow her some happiness. I also liked that Dennis's choice is left unresolved -- we don't know which of two possible women he chooses. It adds a nice note of ambiguity to an otherwise straightforward ending.

I read this book in the "Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp" edition, which in addition to being a very jaunty neon orange also features a very scholarly Afterword that may be of interest. It does discuss the film adaptation as well though so be prepared if you plan to read it without seeing the movie.

Overall recommended for fans of pulp fiction and compelling female protagonists.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've seen the movie a few times, always an entertaining, tense story. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that Bunny Lake is Missing was originally a book, written by Evelyn Piper (pseudonym for Merriam Modell) and published in 1957. The edition that I found was from publisher The Feminist Press for its second instalment of the Women Write Pulp series; also included books by Dorothy Hughes, Faith Baldwin, etc.
As mentioned above, I have always enjoyed the movie; its darkness, manic quality, etc. The book starts off right with the same tone and never lets up throughout the course of the story. Blanche Lake, a single mom, is picking up her daughter, Bunny, from her first day at a pre-school in New York. She waits with the other mothers and with a sickening feeling discovers that Bunny isn't with the other young children, the 3-year old class. This begins a whirlwind search for her young daughter. She struggles to find any clue that Bunny was ever there, do the police believer her? Did she even have a daughter? Where is the evidence that Bunny was registered at the school? Where is the evidence in Blanche's apartment that she has a daughter?
As well, who is Eddie and why is his mother so worried that maybe he might have something to do with the 'disappearance'? And to where has he disappeared?
Blanche's search becomes more and more desperate as she struggles to find clues and to persuade anyone that Bunny exists.
I'll leave it there. It's a frenetic, fascinating story and different enough from the movie to provide quite a different perspective from the one that Otto Preminger brought to bear in the movie. I'll have to check out more pulp fiction from women writers and try to find a copy of Piper's The Nanny. (4 stars)

[cam · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5. J'ai adoré une grande partie de ce livre en 24 heures où j'ai cru perdre la tête comme le personnage principal, et où j'ai cessé de croire quiconque à propos de la disparation de l'enfant, dans un élan commun à tous les personnages qui ne se croient pas entre eux : on ne sait pas qui ment, qui est fou ou de mauvaise foi et les personnages eux-mêmes ne savent pas ; chaque nouveau personnage a été pour moi un sérieux coupable potentiel et le livre a eu sur moi son petit effet de page turner. De la même façon je trouve qu'il fait écho à des enjeux contemporains, notamment au fossé entre l'institution policière et les femmes qui portent plainte, voire entre les hommes et les femmes souvent taxées de folles et d'hystériques par ces derniers. Par contre je suis très déçue par la fin, avec une résolution qui tombe du ciel comme par magie, et surtout une romance (hétéro) qui n'a pas sa place ici (est-ce que vous tomberiez amoureux.se en quelques heures d'un type qui ne vous croit qu'à moitié quand vous lui parlez de la disparition de votre enfant que vous êtes occupé.e à chercher en espérant qu'iel ne soit pas déjà mort.e / est-ce que vous tomberiez amoureux.se d'une femme que vous ne connaissez pas mais que vous jugez folle juste parce qu'elle est belle ? Non et non), mais bon, on est en 1950.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, from the 40's we move up to the 60's and this crazy book/film. I have to say this is one instance when the movie is better than the book. The story takes place over one very long day and night and I found it painful to read. A young woman who has just moved into a city where no one knows her goes to pick up her little daughter from day care but no one has seen her. The police try to help but there is no physical evidence of a child. This makes the woman act desperate and crazy which makes everyone doubt her more and on and on it goes. The film added a new character and a more plausible and more interesting ending.

[Tiffany · Rating 1 out of 5]

je ne sais pas si c’est la traduction ou si c’est vraiment écrit comme ça en anglais, mais le style d’écriture était vraiment bizarre, j’ai eu du mal à comprendre l’histoire au début.
l’histoire était vraiment trop longue et le déroulement à la fin n’a aucun sens, la coupable sort de nulle part et le fait que l’histoire se termine par une romance ?
et la timeline était confuse, ça se passe en 24h mais ça m’avait l’air beaucoup plus long que ça.
bref, livre qui ne vaut pas la peine et beaucoup trop cher (je suis une pigeonne !)

[Darcie Wilde]

Very well written, want to read more by this author. The problem is, the rationale hasn’t aged very well. Seldom say this, but the movie is better.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young woman and her daughter are starting over in a new town. Blanche, the single mother drops off her daughter at her new school but on her return no one remembers a new girl at school and she is not there. This sends Blanche into a panic. No one, especially the police, believe that she has a daughter who is now missing. Suspenseful! This was made into a film by Otto Preminger though the plot was radically changed.

[Jennifer Lafferty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This offbeat mystery had many exciting and suspenseful moments. The story features a cast of colorful characters and is presented with a unique flair. However, it was somewhat difficult to follow and I wish it has been more similar to the film version.

[Joe Nicholl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the over all plot-line was great, but, I didn't like the way author wrote, her prose was bad. So much so I found it to be irritating....time to move on...3.0 outta 5.0...

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am trying this new thing of reading more than one book at a time, and it is fun! I am reading three mysteriouish books at once, and they could not be more different. (For the record, they are Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , Sue Barton Rural Nurse and this one. Also, I am reading Shopaholic and Baby , which is somewhat less mysterious.)

So. Bunny Lake is three years old, and she is missing! We don't know how or why. It is the 1950s and Bunny's mother is a single parent, who had her baby *gasp* out of wedlock! With a married man! And she is clearly unhinged, which leads to her being treated with condescension by authorities and well-meaning administrators. But what kind of crazy is she?

I can't wait to find out!

update 10/08: Um, I let this one go too.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tight harsh look at how people make value judgments. How quickly Blanch is categorized as unbalanced as she searches, with increasingly uncontrolled agitation, for her missing daughter. Her nervous concern and simplistic attitude towards her daughter Bunny's first day at school is in part due to Blanches own extreme youth and inexperience. So she seems sympathetic if tiresome. Blanche does not become really interesting until Bunny begins to seem fictitious despite Blanche being fiercely concerned and even ingenious in seeking both for evidence to convince the authorities her daughter is missing and for a trail that might lead to recovering her daughter.
We are mislead by other characters, first by Eddie and the concerned Mrs Negrito then by the interactions of Dr Newhouse, Mr Wilson and Louise Benton, into several divergent possibilities. We are given changes of view point and setting to keep us guessing if Bunny is really kidnapped or if she is Blanches' delusion. It isn't until the tension reaches the nearly unbearable, when violence and death seems inevitable do people really begin to look at all the potentials of Blanches case.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in 1950s New York City- A young single mother (Blanche)drops her toddler off at nursery school and returns to find her child missing and no traces of the kid ever having existed. The story takes place over only 24 hours as Blanche tries to find her daughter and maintain/prove her sanity. A very engaging light read.

On a more intellectual level, it was interesting to me to see how the main character (a young single mother) was written. The book was published in 1957 and from what I can gather was a grocery store best seller type pulp fiction piece. I found the portrayal of the main character to be much more realistic and in line with current thought on working single mothers than other media I've observed from the same era. There are certainly signs of the time, but overall I feel the situation was depicted without the heavy moral overtones that seem to have permeated culture at the time.

[Mitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a crazy adventure of 1950's pulp fiction! In this story full of mindgames and mayhem, Blanche, a young mother goes to pick up her daughter from her first day of school, and to her horror, Bunny (the daughter) isn't there.

In a panic Blanche is on the hunt to rescue her daughter, and tries to get help from the police. But soon both the police and the school find no records of Bunny's existance...and Blanche is dismissed as insane. With a mental health doctor at her side, Blanche will do ANYTHING to get her daughter back, even though Bunny's existance is doubtful. Is Blanche just crazy, or is it a conspiracy?

I was impressed with the unique storyline and intense feelings this book provides. However, sometimes the writing style is a little strange. But this is a must read for fans of pulp fiction or anyone who enjoys a bizarre twisty story!

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic read. Classic noir. A single mother drops her daughter, Bunny, off to school for the first day of kindergarten. When she returns to pick her up, the daughter is missing, and worse yet, there is no evidence she was ever dropped off in the first place. Has the daughter been kidnapped? Or is Bunny Lake the figment of her mom’s twisted imagination? Mom has just moved to New York, has no friends, and is having trouble proving that Bunny even exists. It’s a long, dark journey thought the isolating streets of NYC. This is the second book I’ve read from the Femmes Fatales series, focusing on female noir writers. Both this and In a Lonely Place are highly recommended.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may be a little biased as I had seen the movie first, but this kept me reading until I was finished. I enjoyed this thoroughly.

I love the allusions not matter how obscure or obvious they were. (The Scarlet Letter, Shakespeare, and "The Lady or the Tiger?" are all mentioned.)

The story is simply, but the atmosphere is thick. Some of the scenes were downright creepy. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys mystery novels.

[Spoilers?:]

I'm pretty sure there are no clues to whodunit, so just sit back and enjoy the terror.

[/Spoilers:]

[Ffiamma · Rating 3 out of 5]

una bambina di tre anni che scompare il primo giorno di asilo senza lasciar tracce, una madre single disperata e schiacciata dai sensi di colpa, uno psichiatra gentile. e il dubbio fortissimo che la piccola bunny non sia mai esistita, ma sia stata solo una proiezione della mente sconvolta di sua madre genera una ricerca ossessiva e frenetica della bimba in una new york crudele e indifferente. piuttosto ingarbugliato e inverosimile verso la fine- alterna tratti di modernità a momenti in cui si sentono gli anni che ha (è del 57).

[BondJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book. A mother searching for a daughter everyone tells her she never had and was never seen. Just like the movie Flight Plan, except you care for the mother, its set in New York in a time when unmarried mothers are greatly judged, and you're really not sure what is going to happen. Piper makes you feel the anxiety and fear that Blanch feels searching for Bunny. You keep thinking Bunny will be found in the next place she looks. I thought the ending was quite sinister and well played. It took me quite a while to get my hands on this book and it was all worth it.

[Anthea Mahieux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je m'attendais à mieux pour la fin. J'ai pas attendu aussi longtemps pour ça. Genre on a jamais entendu ou presque pas du perso qui a kidnappé la gamine
Quand tu introduis autant de personnages autant utiliser ses personnages au maximum
Aussi passons l'histoire du psy qui a un coup de foudre sur Blanche alors qu'elle a perdu son gosse, qu'elle est juste dévastée et que le gars fait que de lui répéter que sa gamine existe pas