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Wilde Lake
An African-American man accused of rape by a humiliated girl. A vengeful father. A courageous attorney. A worshipful daughter. Think you know this story? Think again.
Laura Lippman, the “extravagantly gifted” (Chicago Tribune) New York Times bestselling author, delivers “one of her best novels ” (Washington Post)—a modern twist on To Kill a Mockingbird. Scott Turow writes in the New York Times, “Wilde Lake is a real success.”
Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected state’s attorney representing suburban Maryland—including the famous planned community of Columbia, created to be a utopia of racial and economic equality. Prosecuting a controversial case involving a disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death, the fiercely ambitious Lu is determined to avoid the traps that have destroyed other competitive, successful women. She’s going to play it smart to win this case—and win big—cementing her political future.
But her intensive preparation for trial unexpectedly dredges up painful recollections of another crime—the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Justice was done. Or was it? Did the events of 1980 happen as she remembers them? She was only a child then. What details didn’t she know?
As she plunges deeper into the past, Lu is forced to face a troubling reality. The legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. But what happens when she realizes that, for the first time, she doesn’t want to know the whole truth?
Laura Lippman, the “extravagantly gifted” (Chicago Tribune) New York Times bestselling author, delivers “one of her best novels ” (Washington Post)—a modern twist on To Kill a Mockingbird. Scott Turow writes in the New York Times, “Wilde Lake is a real success.”
Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected state’s attorney representing suburban Maryland—including the famous planned community of Columbia, created to be a utopia of racial and economic equality. Prosecuting a controversial case involving a disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death, the fiercely ambitious Lu is determined to avoid the traps that have destroyed other competitive, successful women. She’s going to play it smart to win this case—and win big—cementing her political future.
But her intensive preparation for trial unexpectedly dredges up painful recollections of another crime—the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Justice was done. Or was it? Did the events of 1980 happen as she remembers them? She was only a child then. What details didn’t she know?
As she plunges deeper into the past, Lu is forced to face a troubling reality. The legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. But what happens when she realizes that, for the first time, she doesn’t want to know the whole truth?
384 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2016
658 people are currently reading
10843 people want to read
About the author
Laura Lippman
114 books6,400 followersSince 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,585 reviews
December 3, 2020
Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman is a 2016 William Morrow publication.
One- part family saga, one- part mystery-
Luisa “Lu” Brant, a newly elected state’s attorney is drawn into a case that on the surface isn’t all that sexy. A homeless man kills a woman, but the case suddenly thrusts Lu back in time- to 1980- when an incident at Wilde Lake, involving her brother, one that may have come back to haunt them all.
This story leans more towards buried secrets, family entanglements, and relationships, than on the murder mystery at the center of it all. There is a nostalgic mood interwoven with a feeling of dread, as the past catches up with the present.
The writing is exceptional, hypnotic almost, and I found myself deeply involved in the story, especially the parts where Lu discusses her childhood and her relationship with her father and brother.
Lu’s narrative is absorbing, to say the least, but occasionally, I was able to shake free from her spell long enough to question why Lippman was spending so much time in Lu's past when she should be connecting the dots of the murder case.
But I was so caught up in the tale, the emphasis on the past didn't really try my patience; however, even if the mystery is a slow burn, the payoff is well worth it in the end.
I got a little more than I bargained for with this one. It is more literary in nature than the standard mystery or Legal Thriller, and it certainly kept me rooted to the pages from beginning to end! A solid effort by this veteran author!
4 stars
One- part family saga, one- part mystery-
Luisa “Lu” Brant, a newly elected state’s attorney is drawn into a case that on the surface isn’t all that sexy. A homeless man kills a woman, but the case suddenly thrusts Lu back in time- to 1980- when an incident at Wilde Lake, involving her brother, one that may have come back to haunt them all.
This story leans more towards buried secrets, family entanglements, and relationships, than on the murder mystery at the center of it all. There is a nostalgic mood interwoven with a feeling of dread, as the past catches up with the present.
The writing is exceptional, hypnotic almost, and I found myself deeply involved in the story, especially the parts where Lu discusses her childhood and her relationship with her father and brother.
Lu’s narrative is absorbing, to say the least, but occasionally, I was able to shake free from her spell long enough to question why Lippman was spending so much time in Lu's past when she should be connecting the dots of the murder case.
But I was so caught up in the tale, the emphasis on the past didn't really try my patience; however, even if the mystery is a slow burn, the payoff is well worth it in the end.
I got a little more than I bargained for with this one. It is more literary in nature than the standard mystery or Legal Thriller, and it certainly kept me rooted to the pages from beginning to end! A solid effort by this veteran author!
4 stars
September 18, 2016
Bottom Line: Some things are just inescapable. Like the glaze of childhood upon our bones. Fraught, sometimes difficult times that revisit us. Plummeting deeper into the waters of wavering denial.
Luisa Brant possesses a determined, tenacious spirit. This serves her well as the newly elected state attorney of Howard County, Maryland. Those bones have been well-formed as she has cut a path in the same vision as her famous attorney father. Newly widowed and a mother of twins, Lu takes residence with this icon of a parent once again. Many have compared this father/daughter relationship to that in To Kill A Mockingbird. Perhaps. Only Lu and her father are cut from cloth more rugged and untamed.
Lu's relationship with her brother plays heavily into the mix. A.J. had been cleared of a crime in 1980 in which he fought with the attacker who stabbed his best friend. The attacker died in the struggle for the knife. A.J. was lauded as a hero. And the scenes from that night carry Lu to a peripheral relationship with the men in her life. Always gripping the edges. Always just this side of the truth.
Laura Lippman offers us more crime/fiction than mystery/thriller here. She weighs heavily into Lu's childhood years and the hammered impact that catapults into the present. Every family has secrets that are guarded relentlessly. Some painfully known by its members. Some never to see the light of one's own reality. And how do you stop the bleeding?
Lu prepares for the trial of a homeless man accused of breaking into a woman's apartment and murdering her. A brutal crime in which the woman's face is bludgeoned in what appears to be an outlash of deadly anger. The trial itself takes Lu back to those scenes of childhood once again. Lippman focuses on the baggage of life that never seemed to make its way to the check-in counter.
Lippman presents a novel heavy on detail. The jagged pieces find their way home. Like birds who seem to roost in the rafters awaiting their final flight. Wilde Lake takes you to the shores of human nature in which deception wades slowly into the lives of these characters. But is it enough to weigh them down forever?
Luisa Brant possesses a determined, tenacious spirit. This serves her well as the newly elected state attorney of Howard County, Maryland. Those bones have been well-formed as she has cut a path in the same vision as her famous attorney father. Newly widowed and a mother of twins, Lu takes residence with this icon of a parent once again. Many have compared this father/daughter relationship to that in To Kill A Mockingbird. Perhaps. Only Lu and her father are cut from cloth more rugged and untamed.
Lu's relationship with her brother plays heavily into the mix. A.J. had been cleared of a crime in 1980 in which he fought with the attacker who stabbed his best friend. The attacker died in the struggle for the knife. A.J. was lauded as a hero. And the scenes from that night carry Lu to a peripheral relationship with the men in her life. Always gripping the edges. Always just this side of the truth.
Laura Lippman offers us more crime/fiction than mystery/thriller here. She weighs heavily into Lu's childhood years and the hammered impact that catapults into the present. Every family has secrets that are guarded relentlessly. Some painfully known by its members. Some never to see the light of one's own reality. And how do you stop the bleeding?
Lu prepares for the trial of a homeless man accused of breaking into a woman's apartment and murdering her. A brutal crime in which the woman's face is bludgeoned in what appears to be an outlash of deadly anger. The trial itself takes Lu back to those scenes of childhood once again. Lippman focuses on the baggage of life that never seemed to make its way to the check-in counter.
Lippman presents a novel heavy on detail. The jagged pieces find their way home. Like birds who seem to roost in the rafters awaiting their final flight. Wilde Lake takes you to the shores of human nature in which deception wades slowly into the lives of these characters. But is it enough to weigh them down forever?
December 10, 2020
I really like Lippman's writing.
I did not like most of the characters. Further, it seems like she copied some of them from "To Kill a Mockingbird." Except, I liked them in TKAM.
Almost everything in the story seemed to be a lie.
I am very familiar with the setting of the story and the author did a fair job in describing the area.
The bottom line is that I am rounded my 3.5 rating to a 4.
I did not like most of the characters. Further, it seems like she copied some of them from "To Kill a Mockingbird." Except, I liked them in TKAM.
Almost everything in the story seemed to be a lie.
I am very familiar with the setting of the story and the author did a fair job in describing the area.
The bottom line is that I am rounded my 3.5 rating to a 4.
June 16, 2016
Of the three stand-alone novels I've read (i.e. those unrelated to the Tess Monaghan series) of Laura Lippman's prolific career, Wilde Lake is probably my favorite. As I mentioned in reviews of her The Most Dangerous Thing and I'd Know You Anywhere, Ms. Lippman's greatest asset is her ability of conveying sense of place. I don't know Baltimore at all, but I feel like I do after reading her stuff. (This ability is rivaled only by Dennis Lehane's gritty you-are-there Boston portraits and a few of Thomas Pynchon's gonzo looks at Los Angeles { Inherent Vice comes immediately to mind}). Ms. Lippman's Baltimore (at least in her three books I've read) is an amalgam of John Waters' woodsy eerie scrub and Lippman's husband David Simon's masterful inner-city series The Wire.
Wilde Lake is centered not in Baltimore, but in exurb Columbia, MD, a relatively newish upscale planned community (of Lippman's own childhood). One of Lippman's trademarks is slathering her novels with dozens of characters. In this novel, most of them live adjacent around Columbia subdivision "fake lake" Wilde Lake, a concreted and dammed (damned?) creation that bears dreadful foreboding that is slowly unfolded as the novel progresses.
There are two plot threads going on (one in the present, one in the past), both revolving around the friends and family of Luisa "Lu" Brant, a 45 year-old elected Maryland state's attorney (following in the footsteps of her father). Her very first murder case after being elected (in a county with a murder rate of roughly two per annum, unlike Baltimore) involves what seems at first a pretty straightforward homeless man's breaking-and-entering attack of a woman in an apartment, but turns out having much more far-reaching, decades-old ramifications than what would appear on the surface.
I'm not quite sure why Ms. Lippman gets kinda middling reception here on Goodreads. Though this not a genre (crime fiction) I spend much time reading, I've never been displeased by her output. I'm guessing her stuff might not be lurid enough for some, or she has too many plot threads and characters, or spends too much time establishing the setting or gabbing about the political climate. Dunno. I can't speak to her Tess Monaghan series at all, but if you have not ever tried out any of Ms. Lippman's intellgently written novels before, Wilde Lake is as good a place as any to give her a try.
Wilde Lake is centered not in Baltimore, but in exurb Columbia, MD, a relatively newish upscale planned community (of Lippman's own childhood). One of Lippman's trademarks is slathering her novels with dozens of characters. In this novel, most of them live adjacent around Columbia subdivision "fake lake" Wilde Lake, a concreted and dammed (damned?) creation that bears dreadful foreboding that is slowly unfolded as the novel progresses.
There are two plot threads going on (one in the present, one in the past), both revolving around the friends and family of Luisa "Lu" Brant, a 45 year-old elected Maryland state's attorney (following in the footsteps of her father). Her very first murder case after being elected (in a county with a murder rate of roughly two per annum, unlike Baltimore) involves what seems at first a pretty straightforward homeless man's breaking-and-entering attack of a woman in an apartment, but turns out having much more far-reaching, decades-old ramifications than what would appear on the surface.
I'm not quite sure why Ms. Lippman gets kinda middling reception here on Goodreads. Though this not a genre (crime fiction) I spend much time reading, I've never been displeased by her output. I'm guessing her stuff might not be lurid enough for some, or she has too many plot threads and characters, or spends too much time establishing the setting or gabbing about the political climate. Dunno. I can't speak to her Tess Monaghan series at all, but if you have not ever tried out any of Ms. Lippman's intellgently written novels before, Wilde Lake is as good a place as any to give her a try.
August 1, 2016
The last (and only) Laura Lippman book I've read previous to Wilde Lake was The Girl in the Green Raincoat in 2013. I had to look up the summary of the book to remember what the book was about and why I gave it 2 stars. Even after reading the blurb, I still can't remember many details so I was a bit leery about investing my time in another lackluster book by this author. I'm so glad I did. This was a well crafted, engaging mystery that was not the least bit predictable. 5 stars for a book that I highly recommend.
April 26, 2023
This book contains one of the most unlikeable protagonists that I have ever met.
Luisa "Lu" Brant is the first female states attorney of Howard County. As her first murder case comes up - a woman beaten and choked to death in her bedroom she takes it, a seemingly open and shut case - the perpetrator being a homeless drifter with a history of violence. But as she starts to look into the case it seems to be more to it than she initially thought, and ties back to memories she has as a young child.
The book jumps back and forth between two time periods - Lu's memories back when she is around the age of 8 and beyond, and the "current day" where she is the newly elected states attorney. The audiobook does a great job of differentiating the two, using two different narrators for each portion.
That's pretty much the only praise I have for this book.
The main character is a selfish, unlikeable, women, who as a child spends her time spying on her brother, and her friends, and then grows into a woman who mimics what she sees.
She uses terms such as "butter face", then acknowledges that it is cruel later on in the book in the middle of a memory, saying that it is a term she would have used for a person if it wasn't so cruel.
Her use of hashtags throughout the book was also something I found irritating as well as the constant references to Five Guys.
When she wasn't being needlessly cruel to the women and men around her - like calling her one friend when she was young "white trash" - she was either bragging about how much money she has, and how much her suit cost, and how much the wine bottle was, OR she was criticizing herself, calling herself small and ragging on her freckles because for some reason those aren't "beautiful".
The plot also took way too long to get started, the interesting revelations only occurring in the last 20% of the book, so for the majority of the time I was bored.
I must also mention that in one of her flashbacks she spies on one of her brothers friends having sex and the next chapter she is having sex with the same person and saying the EXACT SAME THINGS as the girl was he was having sex with all those years ago. How fucking creepy is that?
Wilde Lake? This book should have been called Luisa Brant because it is all about her. And I mean ALL about her.
#sorrynotsorry (See how irritating that is?)
Luisa "Lu" Brant is the first female states attorney of Howard County. As her first murder case comes up - a woman beaten and choked to death in her bedroom she takes it, a seemingly open and shut case - the perpetrator being a homeless drifter with a history of violence. But as she starts to look into the case it seems to be more to it than she initially thought, and ties back to memories she has as a young child.
The book jumps back and forth between two time periods - Lu's memories back when she is around the age of 8 and beyond, and the "current day" where she is the newly elected states attorney. The audiobook does a great job of differentiating the two, using two different narrators for each portion.
That's pretty much the only praise I have for this book.
The main character is a selfish, unlikeable, women, who as a child spends her time spying on her brother, and her friends, and then grows into a woman who mimics what she sees.
She uses terms such as "butter face", then acknowledges that it is cruel later on in the book in the middle of a memory, saying that it is a term she would have used for a person if it wasn't so cruel.
Her use of hashtags throughout the book was also something I found irritating as well as the constant references to Five Guys.
When she wasn't being needlessly cruel to the women and men around her - like calling her one friend when she was young "white trash" - she was either bragging about how much money she has, and how much her suit cost, and how much the wine bottle was, OR she was criticizing herself, calling herself small and ragging on her freckles because for some reason those aren't "beautiful".
The plot also took way too long to get started, the interesting revelations only occurring in the last 20% of the book, so for the majority of the time I was bored.
I must also mention that in one of her flashbacks she spies on one of her brothers friends having sex and the next chapter she is having sex with the same person and saying the EXACT SAME THINGS as the girl was he was having sex with all those years ago. How fucking creepy is that?
Wilde Lake? This book should have been called Luisa Brant because it is all about her. And I mean ALL about her.
#sorrynotsorry (See how irritating that is?)
July 27, 2016
“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”
----Anaïs Nin
Laura Lippman, an American bestselling author, pens an intriguing thriller in her new book, Wilde Lake that unfolds the story of the first female attorney of her county, who earns her first murder case, that looks like an easy win to her, but underneath the simple mystery lies a mind-blowing truth that will take this woman back to her childhood days when her only friend was her elder brother, who was once convicted of a murder but later cleared by the jury, that draws a close similarity to her recent case.
Synopsis:
The bestselling author of the acclaimed standalones After I’m Gone, I’d Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know, challenges our notions of memory, loyalty, responsibility, and justice in this evocative and psychologically complex story about a long-ago death that still haunts a family.
Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected—and first female—state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It’s not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard county doesn’t see many homicides.
As Lu prepares for the trial, the case dredges up painful memories, reminding her small but tight-knit family of the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Now, Lu wonders if the events of 1980 happened as she remembers them. What details might have been withheld from her when she was a child?
The more she learns about the case, the more questions arise. What does it mean to be a man or woman of one’s times? Why do we ask our heroes of the past to conform to the present’s standards? Is that fair? Is it right? Propelled into the past, she discovers that the legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. Lu realizes that even if she could learn the whole truth, she probably wouldn’t want to.
Luisa Brant has forever lived in Wilde Lake in Howard county of Maryland with her father, Andrew Jackson Brant, who was a state attorney, her loving elder brother, AJ, who has a lot of friends from diverse backgrounds when he was in high school, Wilde lake High and their housekeeper, Teensy, who is a person of color. And now Luisa is 45 years old, who has smartly managed to succeed her predecessor Fred Hollister's position by becoming the state's first female attorney and also she shares a complicated relationship with her father. And Luisa has bagged her very first case of a homeless man breaking into a lady's house and murdering her, that looks like a clear win for her. But the prosecution takes her down in the memory lane back to her childhood days when she was a little girl and her brother has been convicted of taking a man's life in order to save another's, whereas the jury cleared him with full marks. And somewhere it gives Luisa a feeling that maybe there is a connection between the homeless man and the incident that occurred several years ago with her brother.
The author's writing is really well polished, and is laced with enough tension that will grip the readers right from the beginning. The narrative is emotive and articulate and is secured with deep feelings and also evoke a sense of respect and love towards one's own family. Right from the very start, the story has an addictive feel to it with a cleverly induced suspense that will keep the readers hooked to the story line till the very end. The pacing of the story line is moderate, yet it picks up sped near the climax thereby not letting the readers lose their interest from the story line.
The mystery is concocted very smartly with lots of unexpected twists and turns that only make this story even more intriguing. The author unravels this mystery layer by layer as in the background there are two stories running, one in the past and another in the present, and the author has strikingly bound those two parallel story lines in a way that will blow the anticipating readers' minds. Also the story has lots of poignant moments, that are deep and will move the readers.
The characters in this book are quite well developed, complete with their realistic demeanor that is flawed yet smart. The interesting mix of diverse characters who are someway related to one another will leave an impression in the minds of the readers. The main character, Luisa, has gone through so much grief and loss in her life, yet her mind is sharp and despite of the emotional attachments, she is projected as someone clear headed and determined to get to the bottom of this mind-twisting mystery. The author has captured her voice both in her childhood days and in her mid age days quite strikingly. Her fearless yet defective behavior will make the readers relate to her and keep rooting for her till the very end.
The backdrop of this story set in the modern and an uprising suburb of Howard Country in Wilde Lake, where the author herself grew up, is vividly captured, through its landscapes to its people to its streets to its culture to its society, reading which, the readers will be instantly transferred to this evocative destination, that the author has descriptively and strikingly arrested through her story line.
In a nutshell, this is a riveting yet poignant mystery that revolves in Wilde Lake as well as in a simple family, where secrets and lies come sprawling out of the twisted maze of the mystery.
Verdict: A fresh take of the crime fiction genre with this captivating thriller.
Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Laura Lippman's publishers for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
----Anaïs Nin
Laura Lippman, an American bestselling author, pens an intriguing thriller in her new book, Wilde Lake that unfolds the story of the first female attorney of her county, who earns her first murder case, that looks like an easy win to her, but underneath the simple mystery lies a mind-blowing truth that will take this woman back to her childhood days when her only friend was her elder brother, who was once convicted of a murder but later cleared by the jury, that draws a close similarity to her recent case.
Synopsis:
The bestselling author of the acclaimed standalones After I’m Gone, I’d Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know, challenges our notions of memory, loyalty, responsibility, and justice in this evocative and psychologically complex story about a long-ago death that still haunts a family.
Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected—and first female—state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It’s not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard county doesn’t see many homicides.
As Lu prepares for the trial, the case dredges up painful memories, reminding her small but tight-knit family of the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Now, Lu wonders if the events of 1980 happened as she remembers them. What details might have been withheld from her when she was a child?
The more she learns about the case, the more questions arise. What does it mean to be a man or woman of one’s times? Why do we ask our heroes of the past to conform to the present’s standards? Is that fair? Is it right? Propelled into the past, she discovers that the legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. Lu realizes that even if she could learn the whole truth, she probably wouldn’t want to.
Luisa Brant has forever lived in Wilde Lake in Howard county of Maryland with her father, Andrew Jackson Brant, who was a state attorney, her loving elder brother, AJ, who has a lot of friends from diverse backgrounds when he was in high school, Wilde lake High and their housekeeper, Teensy, who is a person of color. And now Luisa is 45 years old, who has smartly managed to succeed her predecessor Fred Hollister's position by becoming the state's first female attorney and also she shares a complicated relationship with her father. And Luisa has bagged her very first case of a homeless man breaking into a lady's house and murdering her, that looks like a clear win for her. But the prosecution takes her down in the memory lane back to her childhood days when she was a little girl and her brother has been convicted of taking a man's life in order to save another's, whereas the jury cleared him with full marks. And somewhere it gives Luisa a feeling that maybe there is a connection between the homeless man and the incident that occurred several years ago with her brother.
The author's writing is really well polished, and is laced with enough tension that will grip the readers right from the beginning. The narrative is emotive and articulate and is secured with deep feelings and also evoke a sense of respect and love towards one's own family. Right from the very start, the story has an addictive feel to it with a cleverly induced suspense that will keep the readers hooked to the story line till the very end. The pacing of the story line is moderate, yet it picks up sped near the climax thereby not letting the readers lose their interest from the story line.
The mystery is concocted very smartly with lots of unexpected twists and turns that only make this story even more intriguing. The author unravels this mystery layer by layer as in the background there are two stories running, one in the past and another in the present, and the author has strikingly bound those two parallel story lines in a way that will blow the anticipating readers' minds. Also the story has lots of poignant moments, that are deep and will move the readers.
The characters in this book are quite well developed, complete with their realistic demeanor that is flawed yet smart. The interesting mix of diverse characters who are someway related to one another will leave an impression in the minds of the readers. The main character, Luisa, has gone through so much grief and loss in her life, yet her mind is sharp and despite of the emotional attachments, she is projected as someone clear headed and determined to get to the bottom of this mind-twisting mystery. The author has captured her voice both in her childhood days and in her mid age days quite strikingly. Her fearless yet defective behavior will make the readers relate to her and keep rooting for her till the very end.
The backdrop of this story set in the modern and an uprising suburb of Howard Country in Wilde Lake, where the author herself grew up, is vividly captured, through its landscapes to its people to its streets to its culture to its society, reading which, the readers will be instantly transferred to this evocative destination, that the author has descriptively and strikingly arrested through her story line.
In a nutshell, this is a riveting yet poignant mystery that revolves in Wilde Lake as well as in a simple family, where secrets and lies come sprawling out of the twisted maze of the mystery.
Verdict: A fresh take of the crime fiction genre with this captivating thriller.
Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Laura Lippman's publishers for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
July 29, 2016
3.5★s
Luisa Brant’s mother died a week after Lu was born – her brother AJ was eight so was lucky to have had his mother for those first years of his life. Lu and AJ’s father was a highly respected member of the community in which they lived; State Attorney of Howard County in Maryland. The three of them lived together in their big home with housekeeper/carer/nanny Teensy working days – Lu’s father wasn’t a demonstrative man, but cared for them just the same.
When AJ was eighteen there was an altercation at their graduation party where AJ saved his best friend Davey’s life, and another young man lost his. Though AJ had his arm broken in two places, he was cleared of all fault – Davey’s parents were eternally grateful to AJ while AJ’s family were happy and thankful he hadn’t been too badly hurt.
Now, years later forty five year old Lu was elected into the position her father had held all those years ago – plus she was the first elected woman which made her family proud. But the murder case she became involved in almost immediately dredged up the events of a long ago past – secrets, lies and shattered memories had Lu wondering what had really happened back in 1980 when she was only ten years old. It seemed instead of getting answers there were only more questions…
Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman is a gripping and suspenseful thriller that moved between the present day and the past with ease. The mystery of the past clashing with the murder of the present made for an intriguing plot but I didn’t feel overly drawn to the characters I’m afraid. I enjoyed the character of Lu as a child but felt there was no depth to the adults. And I will admit to skimming in parts. But that said, I would recommend Wilde Lake – my first by this author and she has many fans.
With thanks to Allen & Unwin for this copy to read in exchange for my honest review.
Luisa Brant’s mother died a week after Lu was born – her brother AJ was eight so was lucky to have had his mother for those first years of his life. Lu and AJ’s father was a highly respected member of the community in which they lived; State Attorney of Howard County in Maryland. The three of them lived together in their big home with housekeeper/carer/nanny Teensy working days – Lu’s father wasn’t a demonstrative man, but cared for them just the same.
When AJ was eighteen there was an altercation at their graduation party where AJ saved his best friend Davey’s life, and another young man lost his. Though AJ had his arm broken in two places, he was cleared of all fault – Davey’s parents were eternally grateful to AJ while AJ’s family were happy and thankful he hadn’t been too badly hurt.
Now, years later forty five year old Lu was elected into the position her father had held all those years ago – plus she was the first elected woman which made her family proud. But the murder case she became involved in almost immediately dredged up the events of a long ago past – secrets, lies and shattered memories had Lu wondering what had really happened back in 1980 when she was only ten years old. It seemed instead of getting answers there were only more questions…
Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman is a gripping and suspenseful thriller that moved between the present day and the past with ease. The mystery of the past clashing with the murder of the present made for an intriguing plot but I didn’t feel overly drawn to the characters I’m afraid. I enjoyed the character of Lu as a child but felt there was no depth to the adults. And I will admit to skimming in parts. But that said, I would recommend Wilde Lake – my first by this author and she has many fans.
With thanks to Allen & Unwin for this copy to read in exchange for my honest review.
July 3, 2016
Laura Lippman has been described as one of the best crime novelists writing today – and I have to say from a purely readers point of view that I would absolutely agree with that.
Wilde Lake is perhaps my favourite of hers so far – multi layered, intensely engaging, a story about family secrets, community, perception and reality, with some intriguing and brilliantly drawn characters and an atmospheric and authentic setting.
The story uses the past/present narrative in a slightly different way, as Lu enters the fray on a murder case that may have deep rooted and hidden links back to her own family. As she prepares to make her case, the past starts to intrude on the present and things Lu thought she knew suddenly look very different from her now adult perspective.
She is in some ways a divisive character which makes things all the more interesting -this author knows how to drag you deep into the story, I loved the relationships drawn between Lu, her father and her brother. A family pulling together through all things, the normal and sometimes not so normal life events, the picture painted is a fascinating one. Throw into that a death from the past and one from the now, start moving one towards the other and you will be unable to put this one down.
Laura Lippman shows us how Lu came to be, her influences and experiences growing up which all feed into her behaviour and reactions in the now -there is a mystery element that has many nuances, this is not a black and white whodunnit but a tale of many levels. Moral lines blur, Lives are changed. The whole thing is extraordinarily gripping.
I loved it. I loved the use of language to convey and invoke emotion, loved the dark and genuinely clever plot and the ending made me cry. Brilliant.
Highly Recommended.
Wilde Lake is perhaps my favourite of hers so far – multi layered, intensely engaging, a story about family secrets, community, perception and reality, with some intriguing and brilliantly drawn characters and an atmospheric and authentic setting.
The story uses the past/present narrative in a slightly different way, as Lu enters the fray on a murder case that may have deep rooted and hidden links back to her own family. As she prepares to make her case, the past starts to intrude on the present and things Lu thought she knew suddenly look very different from her now adult perspective.
She is in some ways a divisive character which makes things all the more interesting -this author knows how to drag you deep into the story, I loved the relationships drawn between Lu, her father and her brother. A family pulling together through all things, the normal and sometimes not so normal life events, the picture painted is a fascinating one. Throw into that a death from the past and one from the now, start moving one towards the other and you will be unable to put this one down.
Laura Lippman shows us how Lu came to be, her influences and experiences growing up which all feed into her behaviour and reactions in the now -there is a mystery element that has many nuances, this is not a black and white whodunnit but a tale of many levels. Moral lines blur, Lives are changed. The whole thing is extraordinarily gripping.
I loved it. I loved the use of language to convey and invoke emotion, loved the dark and genuinely clever plot and the ending made me cry. Brilliant.
Highly Recommended.
June 6, 2016
Diffuse
Forget the dark-and-stormy-night implications of the garish cover. Far from wild, Wilde Lake is the man-made centerpiece of a manicured subdivision in a new town arising out of the idealism of the later sixties: Columbia, Maryland. Laura Lippman makes no bones about this; one of the most interesting things about her new book (especially for a reader who came to America at about this time and lives close by) is the time-capsule it offers of its place and period. The novel proceeds in at-first-alternating chapters in two time frames. Those in regular type are set in 2015, and cover the first few months in office of Lu Brant, widowed mother of two, daughter of a revered State's Attorney, and now elected to her father's old position. The others, in a light sans-serif that is harder to read, start with the family first coming to Columbia, before Lu was even born, and continue with her tagging along as a naive but observant kid sister as her brother AJ and his friends go through high school and off to college. Not only does Lippman know the setting, she clearly knows families, and is an acute observer of changing mores.
It is not uncommon for mystery novels (and television shows) to alternate work on a case with glimpses of the investigators' private lives, and for a while that it what seems to be happening here. Lu's first case is the murder of a middle-aged woman in an apartment complex. Fingerprint evidence leads quickly to an individual who may either be the killer, or an intruder who unwittingly stumbled on the scene. Soon, it is not only the flashback chapters that delve into the past, but the present-day ones also. The slightest cue will send Lu recalling something else in her childhood. The trouble is that with the leisurely pace of the recollections, and the lack of forensic interest in the murder case, there is simply not enough propulsive energy in either thread to move the book forward. I was just about prepared to accept that, unlike Lippman's famous detective stories, this would turn out to be a ordinary novel with just a small law-enforcement element thrown in. As such, I would have found it somewhat interesting, but almost fatally diffuse.
But then the two time-lines coincide. We find ourselves in the present throughout, but new mysteries come out of the woodwork that do indeed have their roots in the past; I shall not say more. For me, though, this was too little too late. I found it difficult to believe in the motivation of most of the people involved. I wondered if Lippman was trying to write a novel about how ideals become tarnished and even the most admirable figures show feet of clay. It would have been a worthwhile theme, but it suffers from too long a build-up to too questionable a payoff, despite her many acute insights along the way.
Forget the dark-and-stormy-night implications of the garish cover. Far from wild, Wilde Lake is the man-made centerpiece of a manicured subdivision in a new town arising out of the idealism of the later sixties: Columbia, Maryland. Laura Lippman makes no bones about this; one of the most interesting things about her new book (especially for a reader who came to America at about this time and lives close by) is the time-capsule it offers of its place and period. The novel proceeds in at-first-alternating chapters in two time frames. Those in regular type are set in 2015, and cover the first few months in office of Lu Brant, widowed mother of two, daughter of a revered State's Attorney, and now elected to her father's old position. The others, in a light sans-serif that is harder to read, start with the family first coming to Columbia, before Lu was even born, and continue with her tagging along as a naive but observant kid sister as her brother AJ and his friends go through high school and off to college. Not only does Lippman know the setting, she clearly knows families, and is an acute observer of changing mores.
It is not uncommon for mystery novels (and television shows) to alternate work on a case with glimpses of the investigators' private lives, and for a while that it what seems to be happening here. Lu's first case is the murder of a middle-aged woman in an apartment complex. Fingerprint evidence leads quickly to an individual who may either be the killer, or an intruder who unwittingly stumbled on the scene. Soon, it is not only the flashback chapters that delve into the past, but the present-day ones also. The slightest cue will send Lu recalling something else in her childhood. The trouble is that with the leisurely pace of the recollections, and the lack of forensic interest in the murder case, there is simply not enough propulsive energy in either thread to move the book forward. I was just about prepared to accept that, unlike Lippman's famous detective stories, this would turn out to be a ordinary novel with just a small law-enforcement element thrown in. As such, I would have found it somewhat interesting, but almost fatally diffuse.
But then the two time-lines coincide. We find ourselves in the present throughout, but new mysteries come out of the woodwork that do indeed have their roots in the past; I shall not say more. For me, though, this was too little too late. I found it difficult to believe in the motivation of most of the people involved. I wondered if Lippman was trying to write a novel about how ideals become tarnished and even the most admirable figures show feet of clay. It would have been a worthwhile theme, but it suffers from too long a build-up to too questionable a payoff, despite her many acute insights along the way.
April 13, 2016
My new favorite Lippman, which is saying something.
March 25, 2017
Written well, just not what I was hoping for.
August 18, 2017
Most readers seemed to like this book. I thought there were some good moments but not enough, and the ending was not satisfying. Lippman's handling of two different time frames is well done and the tantalizing juxtaposition of past and present creates the best moments of the story. However, the resolution of the converging stories is much weaker than I expected, and left too much unexplained.
September 22, 2018
Wilde Lake not only was an engrossing book it also gave me a new favorite author that I really need to read more books by. Why haven't I read anything by Laura Lippman before? Wilde Lake jumps between the present story with Luisa "Lu" Brant investigating as an attorney a murder and through flashbacks to the 80s do we get to know more about Lu's childhood, her growing up with her father and brother and a murder case that made her father, who was an attorney too, famous. We also learn about the night Lu's brother saved his best friends life at the cost of another man's life.
Boy, there are secrets in this book. A busload of them. And, I really loved getting to the bottom of the story because nothing is at it seems. Flawed characters, terrible secrets, and really flesh out characters and all starts with the murder that Lu is investigating. Fabulous book!
Boy, there are secrets in this book. A busload of them. And, I really loved getting to the bottom of the story because nothing is at it seems. Flawed characters, terrible secrets, and really flesh out characters and all starts with the murder that Lu is investigating. Fabulous book!
January 9, 2025
A wonderfully told story of a mystery of the past and today.
Told from 2 points of view of the same person.
Lu as a young girl and Lu now as an adult. I liked the parts of the book told by younger Lu the most, but it was well thought out about the differences in many of the characters over the years and who they become.
4 stars
Told from 2 points of view of the same person.
Lu as a young girl and Lu now as an adult. I liked the parts of the book told by younger Lu the most, but it was well thought out about the differences in many of the characters over the years and who they become.
4 stars
February 8, 2017
Wilde Lake is a neighborhood in the town of Columbia, MD. Lippmann seems to agree with most of the common criticisms of this planned community founded in the late 60's by developer James Rouse. Not only was it designed to create a small city with a village feel, but has the lofty aims to eliminate racism and religious and class intolerance. Lippman mentions (more than once) the fact that Columbia has an interfaith center rather than places of worship for various faiths. This has been often critiqued. It is a town divided into 10 villages, full of cul-de-sacs and almost impossible to figure out. Most businesses are concentrated in a huge mall and an ever expanding sprawl of big box stores. I personally find it pretty soulless and before the advent of GPS avoided going there for fear of getting hopelessly lost.
The story focuses on Lu Brant, state's attorney general, and moves back and forth between her childhood, and teens and her current life. There are two past crimes that come back - a murder and an accusation of rape- and a current murder. All end up connected which is not a surprise when crimes occur in a small community.
I am a big fan of Lippman's Tess Monaghan series set in Baltimore. Her other novels are less captivating. Lippman went to high school in Columbia, which explains her setting and perhaps what comes across as a relative indifference to the community. A decent "read" (listen) but one that didn't live up to some of the accolades the novel has gotten.
The story focuses on Lu Brant, state's attorney general, and moves back and forth between her childhood, and teens and her current life. There are two past crimes that come back - a murder and an accusation of rape- and a current murder. All end up connected which is not a surprise when crimes occur in a small community.
I am a big fan of Lippman's Tess Monaghan series set in Baltimore. Her other novels are less captivating. Lippman went to high school in Columbia, which explains her setting and perhaps what comes across as a relative indifference to the community. A decent "read" (listen) but one that didn't live up to some of the accolades the novel has gotten.
July 9, 2016
This new novel by Laura Lippman is a great disappointment. The story started with a memory from 1980 and then moved right into the current (1/1/15) time frame giving us the basis for the plot. After fewer than 10 pages we had another flashback, to another time period. And then another chapter in the current time and then another flashback to a still different time period.
The flashbacks seemed to get more and more frequent, disregarding the actual plot completely. Also the flashbacks droned on and on being filled with lots and lots of insignificant detail. Neither were they chronological nor logical. They bounced around in both time periods and subject matter.
At one point our protagonist at age 6 witnessed 2 of her brother’s 15 year old friends having sex at her house. She commented to herself that it seemed that the girl was experienced and this was the boy’s first time. The very next chapter (in the current time frame) started with our protagonist having sex with this same boy 25+ years later. This was supposed to be interesting? It’s drivel. It’s boring.
Halfway through the book, the author had not returned to the plot. At that point I re-read the flyleaf, trying to figure out what was happening (or supposed to be happening). That made me remember the original basis for the plot … but by then, the story had totally lost my interest and I simply didn’t care.
Don’t waste your time.
The flashbacks seemed to get more and more frequent, disregarding the actual plot completely. Also the flashbacks droned on and on being filled with lots and lots of insignificant detail. Neither were they chronological nor logical. They bounced around in both time periods and subject matter.
At one point our protagonist at age 6 witnessed 2 of her brother’s 15 year old friends having sex at her house. She commented to herself that it seemed that the girl was experienced and this was the boy’s first time. The very next chapter (in the current time frame) started with our protagonist having sex with this same boy 25+ years later. This was supposed to be interesting? It’s drivel. It’s boring.
Halfway through the book, the author had not returned to the plot. At that point I re-read the flyleaf, trying to figure out what was happening (or supposed to be happening). That made me remember the original basis for the plot … but by then, the story had totally lost my interest and I simply didn’t care.
Don’t waste your time.
April 4, 2018
Finding Lippman's Sunburn this year to be a 5 star studded book, I found a couple of her older books in audio from OverDrive. This is the first of those, and it is thoughtful in its plotting, full of old secrets that if revealed could change her family and how she sees it. The audio version employed different female voices to tell of Lu's motherless childhood and her adult years as an elected state's attorney, following in her father's footsteps. Her first murder case brings back the time when her father was involved in a case where a trashy girl accused a black man of rape and her brother accidentally killed someone. And oh yeah, she was a tomboy as a girl and brought a boy home for dinner who was lacking in manners. Ring any bells?
I need to research why Lippman went with the obvious comparisons to TKAM . .. it may be that she's simply paying homage to and reimagining a favorite classic. It kept it interesting for me, because it's certainly my favorite. But even without that, this is a very worthy, inspired crime novel.
"We always want our heroes to be better than their times, to hold the enlightened views we have achieved one hundred, fifty, ten years later."
I need to research why Lippman went with the obvious comparisons to TKAM . .. it may be that she's simply paying homage to and reimagining a favorite classic. It kept it interesting for me, because it's certainly my favorite. But even without that, this is a very worthy, inspired crime novel.
"We always want our heroes to be better than their times, to hold the enlightened views we have achieved one hundred, fifty, ten years later."
May 4, 2019
RATING: 3 STARS
2016; William Morrow/Harper Collins
In Lippman's newest standalone novel she weaves the 1960s, 70s, 80s and present day to tell us about the Brant family. Lu Brant is following her father's footsteps when she is the newly appointed state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland. The first murder case that comes to her brings backs memories of her past, or rather her brother's coming of age story. As she delves into the murder case she is also uncovering secrets of her past - some that should have stayed buried.
Lippman opens the novel with the broken arm of AJ Brant, Lu's older brother. Lu is the youngest daughter of widower, Andrew Jackson Brant, also a lawyer. Working as a state's attorney he has late hours so is primarily raised by their housekeeper. At this time their father is prosecuting a big case and the children are intrigued with it. They meet a young boy, who is gay, and becomes their friend. Well, more of AJ's friend as Lu doesn't have any friends till later in the book. Lu is living her life through her brother. She is smart but also literal and competitive.
Does the story line sound familiar? Does it sound like a really famous book by the name of To Kill a Mockingbird? Lippman was inspired by the book but it reads too much like TKAM and leaves you dissatisfied. There is a scene in Wilde Lake where Lu finally makes a friend and invites him over for Thanksgiving dinner. Her friend, Randy instead of using a fork uses his hand to eat his dessert. Lu chides him for his lack of manners and calls him white trash. Her father scolds her and sends her up to her room as punishment. This scene right away brought up TKAM with Atticus and Scout (Jean Lousie). In fact, I think it took me so long to read this book because I was spending a lot of time reminiscing about TKAM. In Harper Lee's newly published novel, Go Set A Watchman we see the grown up version of Jean Louise and that is what we get in Wilde Lake - child and woman Lu.
I gave Wilde Lake three stars because Lippman is a great writer. This is not a traditional suspense mystery but more of a literary novel with little mysteries running through it. I didn't have any expectations going in and the novel sets itself up quite early so I was not disappointed in genre or writing. Whereas with TKAM the main characters are predominantly good and likeable, the characters in this novel were self-serving and at times unlikable. Yet, it fit the characters and story so I was still able to read the book and be engaged. After finishing this book, just an hour ago...I have been wondering how to rate it. The writing was great, the story was too easy to figure out because of TKAM, I wanted to finish the book but did skim some of Lu's inner chatter and I honestly don't know if I would recommend this book (and if I did, who to). As a concession I went with three stars. I didn't hate it and I didn't love it. It was well written but I wanted less of TKAM and more surprise. I have read most of Lippman's standalone novels so I do recommend her as an author to read - even when it is a so-so book. I am going to stop here before I get to wishy washy with this, lol.
***I received an eARC from EDELWEISS***
My Novelesque Blog
2016; William Morrow/Harper Collins
In Lippman's newest standalone novel she weaves the 1960s, 70s, 80s and present day to tell us about the Brant family. Lu Brant is following her father's footsteps when she is the newly appointed state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland. The first murder case that comes to her brings backs memories of her past, or rather her brother's coming of age story. As she delves into the murder case she is also uncovering secrets of her past - some that should have stayed buried.
Lippman opens the novel with the broken arm of AJ Brant, Lu's older brother. Lu is the youngest daughter of widower, Andrew Jackson Brant, also a lawyer. Working as a state's attorney he has late hours so is primarily raised by their housekeeper. At this time their father is prosecuting a big case and the children are intrigued with it. They meet a young boy, who is gay, and becomes their friend. Well, more of AJ's friend as Lu doesn't have any friends till later in the book. Lu is living her life through her brother. She is smart but also literal and competitive.
Does the story line sound familiar? Does it sound like a really famous book by the name of To Kill a Mockingbird? Lippman was inspired by the book but it reads too much like TKAM and leaves you dissatisfied. There is a scene in Wilde Lake where Lu finally makes a friend and invites him over for Thanksgiving dinner. Her friend, Randy instead of using a fork uses his hand to eat his dessert. Lu chides him for his lack of manners and calls him white trash. Her father scolds her and sends her up to her room as punishment. This scene right away brought up TKAM with Atticus and Scout (Jean Lousie). In fact, I think it took me so long to read this book because I was spending a lot of time reminiscing about TKAM. In Harper Lee's newly published novel, Go Set A Watchman we see the grown up version of Jean Louise and that is what we get in Wilde Lake - child and woman Lu.
I gave Wilde Lake three stars because Lippman is a great writer. This is not a traditional suspense mystery but more of a literary novel with little mysteries running through it. I didn't have any expectations going in and the novel sets itself up quite early so I was not disappointed in genre or writing. Whereas with TKAM the main characters are predominantly good and likeable, the characters in this novel were self-serving and at times unlikable. Yet, it fit the characters and story so I was still able to read the book and be engaged. After finishing this book, just an hour ago...I have been wondering how to rate it. The writing was great, the story was too easy to figure out because of TKAM, I wanted to finish the book but did skim some of Lu's inner chatter and I honestly don't know if I would recommend this book (and if I did, who to). As a concession I went with three stars. I didn't hate it and I didn't love it. It was well written but I wanted less of TKAM and more surprise. I have read most of Lippman's standalone novels so I do recommend her as an author to read - even when it is a so-so book. I am going to stop here before I get to wishy washy with this, lol.
***I received an eARC from EDELWEISS***
My Novelesque Blog
July 28, 2016
“The truth is messy, riotous, overrunning everything. You can never know the whole truth of anything. And if you could, you would wish you didn’t.”
So what is the truth that state’s attorney Luisa “Lu” Brant is pursuing? She is getting ready to prosecute the case of a mentally disturbed homeless man who savagely beat a woman to death in her own apartment. There appears to be no connection between victim and perpetrator.
As the truth of what happened that night gradually comes out, Lu begins to reflect on the past when her brother – AJ – inadvertently killed a rebel teen who knifed his best friend and was cleared. In alternating chapters, Lu’s life with her celebrated father – a previous state’s attorney – and with her charismatic and overshadowing older brother is revealed.
This book is about secrets – those we harbor, those we reveal, and the cost of pursuing the truth at all costs. Is it better to be 100% truthful or to recognize that people make “disastrous decisions that made perfect sense within the context of the world they know, the moment in which they had to act?”
From time to time, the book bows upon the altar of political correctness. But for the most part, it is taut and believable. Psychologically insightful, Wilde Lake mines the costs of truth and accountability and the messiness of nuanced lives. I do not often read mysteries and have only read one other book by Laura Lippman (What The Dead Know). But I found myself eagerly turning pages. I’d recommend for any reader of psychological suspense.
So what is the truth that state’s attorney Luisa “Lu” Brant is pursuing? She is getting ready to prosecute the case of a mentally disturbed homeless man who savagely beat a woman to death in her own apartment. There appears to be no connection between victim and perpetrator.
As the truth of what happened that night gradually comes out, Lu begins to reflect on the past when her brother – AJ – inadvertently killed a rebel teen who knifed his best friend and was cleared. In alternating chapters, Lu’s life with her celebrated father – a previous state’s attorney – and with her charismatic and overshadowing older brother is revealed.
This book is about secrets – those we harbor, those we reveal, and the cost of pursuing the truth at all costs. Is it better to be 100% truthful or to recognize that people make “disastrous decisions that made perfect sense within the context of the world they know, the moment in which they had to act?”
From time to time, the book bows upon the altar of political correctness. But for the most part, it is taut and believable. Psychologically insightful, Wilde Lake mines the costs of truth and accountability and the messiness of nuanced lives. I do not often read mysteries and have only read one other book by Laura Lippman (What The Dead Know). But I found myself eagerly turning pages. I’d recommend for any reader of psychological suspense.
May 3, 2016
The famous Brandt family....could they do anything wrong or were they not able to because of their status? Or...did they do it anyway?
The Brandt family was made up of attorneys and secrets. Lu and her brother AJ were eight years apart with Lu admiring AJ and his friends. The secrets kept all of those years of the night AJ saved someone's life along with another secret and how it affected their lives became apparent as the book continued.
Wilde Lake tells the story through flashbacks. The flashbacks allowed us into the Brandt family's history.
Lu Brandt tells of her motherless childhood, how she admired her older brother, and of her adult life raising twins alone and being the first female state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, trying a homeless man for murder.
As this trial moved forward quickly and then ended quickly, things that had happened in the past slowly creeped up.
WILDE LAKE seemed more of a family saga than a mystery. I enjoyed the characters even though they all were a bit socially awkward.
WILDE LAKE dragged a little at times because I kept waiting for the mystery.
I can’t say I didn’t like the book, but it took a while to get to the mystery, but it was worth the wait.
ENJOY when you read WILDE LAKE. 4/5
This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.
April 9, 2016
Fans of Laura Lippman's detective series and stand-alone novels may be surprised that this is less a mystery than it is the story of family and community, and the narratives that shape our lives. It is also an exploration of memory, the mineshaft between facts and truth, and the precarious tunnel between parental and self-protection. “The truth is not a finite commodity that can be contained within identifiable borders. The truth is messy, riotous, overrunning everything. You can never know the whole truth of anything. And if you could, you would wish you wouldn’t.”
The preplanned, sculpted suburb of Columbia, Maryland, where this story takes place—from the manmade lake to the cookie-cutter villages—is also where the fairytale façade eventually peels away after years of secrets and tweaked retrospection. During its genesis, the prim, trim, identifiable borders of Columbia are a contrast to the untidy truth of the occupants within.
Luisa “Lu” Brant, the 45 year-old newly elected County State’s Attorney, is an ambitious and competitive widow of young twins and the daughter of a prior State’s Attorney, Andrew Jackson Brant. After Lu’s husband died, they moved back to Columbia, into her childhood home. She has come full circle, living with her father again, and the community in which she was raised. Her brother, AJ, who is seven years older, has made a name for himself in the green sphere of sustainable living. Lu and AJ have a close, loving bond, no doubt triggered by the death of their mother, Adele, when Lu was only a week old, and AJ seven years older. To make her mother come alive in her mind, she depends on other people's memories, the facts of Adele told to her, instead of remembered.
Lippman quickly delves into a grievous incident of the past and keeps us tethered to the darker side of the Brant’s suburban childhood. A young man died while AJ was trying to save a good friend’s life, on the night of his high school graduation. Fortunately, AJ was found to have acted in self-defense, and the family never spoke of it again. “It was common then not to speak of traumatic things, to assume that a firm silence would lead to the fastest healing.”
Lu’s first case as State’s Attorney is prosecuting a mentally ill man, accused of killing a woman in her home. Since murder is rare in Columbia, she’s due some recognition if she wins the case. But the investigation reveals some surprises, jogging old memories and finding that they don’t always fit the “facts” as she knows them. Plus, she has a secret life of her own, a clandestine lover who she knew as a child. “Which just proves…how very good she is at compartmentalizing.”
Compartmentalizing is a concept familiar to the Brant family. Lu’s knowledge of her mother, for instance, is limited to what her father and AJ have told her, which isn’t much, but arranged lovingly in recitation format. “She was like a character in a fairytale,” her father tells her. And about her grandparents, in heightened tones: “In a twist worthy of a fairytale, they kept their daughter under lock and key in a stone house with turrets, twisting staircases, and stained-glass windows.”
There are other references to fairytales, such as a “Cinderella slipper” that Andrew Brant fashioned figuratively from a shoe to win the murder case that made his career. Fairytales are an ironic metaphor that captures the bleaker side of Wilde Lake, the castles of the idyll haunted by shadows and ghosts of the past.
In this Pleasantville-esque community, breaches of silence are gradual, and secrets are deftly dismantled over the course of the novel, which is divided into alternate timelines, the past and the present. The author also examines the facts of the past in light of present perceptions and mores, and she comes by it honestly. This is the place where Lippman was raised, too, so the fiction is dusted with actual experience.
Lippman’s ingenious construction compelled me; she enlarged the scope of detail and then brought it down to its essential elements by the end of the narrative. She braids timelines gradually, expanding the action to include such a smorgasbord of events that I admit to wondering, halfway in, if Lippman’s themes would crash under its plotlines, which were numerous. A lesser author would have failed to pull it off, but Lippman prepared a feast of a story, down to every succulent bite. I wasn’t thinking of To Kill A Mockingbird, which she purposely used as a framework. Instead, I was installed in the myths of Wilde Lake, and the Brant family's tangled tale of conceits.
The preplanned, sculpted suburb of Columbia, Maryland, where this story takes place—from the manmade lake to the cookie-cutter villages—is also where the fairytale façade eventually peels away after years of secrets and tweaked retrospection. During its genesis, the prim, trim, identifiable borders of Columbia are a contrast to the untidy truth of the occupants within.
Luisa “Lu” Brant, the 45 year-old newly elected County State’s Attorney, is an ambitious and competitive widow of young twins and the daughter of a prior State’s Attorney, Andrew Jackson Brant. After Lu’s husband died, they moved back to Columbia, into her childhood home. She has come full circle, living with her father again, and the community in which she was raised. Her brother, AJ, who is seven years older, has made a name for himself in the green sphere of sustainable living. Lu and AJ have a close, loving bond, no doubt triggered by the death of their mother, Adele, when Lu was only a week old, and AJ seven years older. To make her mother come alive in her mind, she depends on other people's memories, the facts of Adele told to her, instead of remembered.
Lippman quickly delves into a grievous incident of the past and keeps us tethered to the darker side of the Brant’s suburban childhood. A young man died while AJ was trying to save a good friend’s life, on the night of his high school graduation. Fortunately, AJ was found to have acted in self-defense, and the family never spoke of it again. “It was common then not to speak of traumatic things, to assume that a firm silence would lead to the fastest healing.”
Lu’s first case as State’s Attorney is prosecuting a mentally ill man, accused of killing a woman in her home. Since murder is rare in Columbia, she’s due some recognition if she wins the case. But the investigation reveals some surprises, jogging old memories and finding that they don’t always fit the “facts” as she knows them. Plus, she has a secret life of her own, a clandestine lover who she knew as a child. “Which just proves…how very good she is at compartmentalizing.”
Compartmentalizing is a concept familiar to the Brant family. Lu’s knowledge of her mother, for instance, is limited to what her father and AJ have told her, which isn’t much, but arranged lovingly in recitation format. “She was like a character in a fairytale,” her father tells her. And about her grandparents, in heightened tones: “In a twist worthy of a fairytale, they kept their daughter under lock and key in a stone house with turrets, twisting staircases, and stained-glass windows.”
There are other references to fairytales, such as a “Cinderella slipper” that Andrew Brant fashioned figuratively from a shoe to win the murder case that made his career. Fairytales are an ironic metaphor that captures the bleaker side of Wilde Lake, the castles of the idyll haunted by shadows and ghosts of the past.
In this Pleasantville-esque community, breaches of silence are gradual, and secrets are deftly dismantled over the course of the novel, which is divided into alternate timelines, the past and the present. The author also examines the facts of the past in light of present perceptions and mores, and she comes by it honestly. This is the place where Lippman was raised, too, so the fiction is dusted with actual experience.
Lippman’s ingenious construction compelled me; she enlarged the scope of detail and then brought it down to its essential elements by the end of the narrative. She braids timelines gradually, expanding the action to include such a smorgasbord of events that I admit to wondering, halfway in, if Lippman’s themes would crash under its plotlines, which were numerous. A lesser author would have failed to pull it off, but Lippman prepared a feast of a story, down to every succulent bite. I wasn’t thinking of To Kill A Mockingbird, which she purposely used as a framework. Instead, I was installed in the myths of Wilde Lake, and the Brant family's tangled tale of conceits.
April 19, 2016
I read this book over a month ago, and I had to ponder exactly how I felt about the characters, the storyline, and give a final determination about how I felt after reading the book. I'm still simmering over it, but here's a quick snapshot of my thoughts...
Luisa "Lu" Brant is from a Family (yes, capital letter) in a relatively small town. Her older brother is Mr. BMOC but always treats Lu kindly. Her father was the state's attorney for Howard County when she was young, and now it is an office she serves. Basically, other than her mother being gone, she has the kind of golden family you, well, read about.
Lu has to handle a case in which a woman is beaten to death by a kooky vagrant, and he brings back memories of when her teenage brother and his friends got into a mix up that, ummm. accidentally left someone dead. No worries, the dead dude came from a "trash" family so no big whup...
As she digs into her current case, questions arise and memories come to light that makes her need to re-visit the past. Throughout the book, as a reader I wanted to reach through the pages and scream, "Quit asking so many damn questions?! Why do you need to ruin everybody's everything?!" Apparently, she never heard my mental anguish, because dig away she does..all the way to a correct but somewhat bitter ending.
I enjoy Laura Lippman book and this one was non-stop. I read it in a day, and with a family and work that's no small feat. Did I wholly enjoy it? It made me uncomfortable, it made me think a LOT about how I see people and put them into boxes. It made me question some everyday assumptions I make without even thinking twice. Once all is said and done, did I really enjoy that experience? Not 100% sure, but I DO think this is a book worth reading.
Luisa "Lu" Brant is from a Family (yes, capital letter) in a relatively small town. Her older brother is Mr. BMOC but always treats Lu kindly. Her father was the state's attorney for Howard County when she was young, and now it is an office she serves. Basically, other than her mother being gone, she has the kind of golden family you, well, read about.
Lu has to handle a case in which a woman is beaten to death by a kooky vagrant, and he brings back memories of when her teenage brother and his friends got into a mix up that, ummm. accidentally left someone dead. No worries, the dead dude came from a "trash" family so no big whup...
As she digs into her current case, questions arise and memories come to light that makes her need to re-visit the past. Throughout the book, as a reader I wanted to reach through the pages and scream, "Quit asking so many damn questions?! Why do you need to ruin everybody's everything?!" Apparently, she never heard my mental anguish, because dig away she does..all the way to a correct but somewhat bitter ending.
I enjoy Laura Lippman book and this one was non-stop. I read it in a day, and with a family and work that's no small feat. Did I wholly enjoy it? It made me uncomfortable, it made me think a LOT about how I see people and put them into boxes. It made me question some everyday assumptions I make without even thinking twice. Once all is said and done, did I really enjoy that experience? Not 100% sure, but I DO think this is a book worth reading.
May 25, 2016
What is wrong with me? Anxious to read this as I think Lippmann is a great author. 40% into it and it's just drudgery. Blah
August 28, 2016
I gave it 100 pages but just can't get into it. Too much back story, slow forward movement, and I can't connect with the characters.
June 24, 2016
Some authors blur the line between mystery/thriller and literary fiction. No one, IMHO, blurs it more than Laura Lippman. Whenever I read her, I feel as if I could be reading a novel written by a Sue Miller or a Christina Schwartz. I find it ironically amusing that this book is sorted in the Mystery section, while many of the mysteries that I have read (Girl on a Train, e.g.) being sorted in the Fiction section. This novel is as much a coming of age story as it is a mystery, though there are certainly elements of figuring out the crime and who done it how.
The story involves a present day murder and the lead character is the newly elected State's Attorney of Harris County MD who is prosecuting the case. The story from the past involves her brother, eight years older than her, and his friends. There's a possible rape, an accidental killing, a revenge attempted murder and assault, and possible covering up of evidence. It all comes together in the end with some family surprises thrown in.
What was so nice for me in reading this novel was that much of it was the lead character as a young girl and her development in a family that included a single father and older brother. There is much that is unrelated to the mystery and is basically a coming of age tale. I also liked the fact that there was no grand guignol, overly melodramatic ending with peril galore. Ms. Lippman is much too sophisticated for that. This novel has rape, a brutal murder, psychotic characters and yet never feels the least bit lurid or discomforting. It was written by a women with comfortable mastery over the material and it shows throughout the novel.
The story involves a present day murder and the lead character is the newly elected State's Attorney of Harris County MD who is prosecuting the case. The story from the past involves her brother, eight years older than her, and his friends. There's a possible rape, an accidental killing, a revenge attempted murder and assault, and possible covering up of evidence. It all comes together in the end with some family surprises thrown in.
What was so nice for me in reading this novel was that much of it was the lead character as a young girl and her development in a family that included a single father and older brother. There is much that is unrelated to the mystery and is basically a coming of age tale. I also liked the fact that there was no grand guignol, overly melodramatic ending with peril galore. Ms. Lippman is much too sophisticated for that. This novel has rape, a brutal murder, psychotic characters and yet never feels the least bit lurid or discomforting. It was written by a women with comfortable mastery over the material and it shows throughout the novel.
May 18, 2020
Wilde Lake, while entertaining, fell a little short of being truly captivating.
I listened to it on audiobook and it was fine.
There were two narrators to differentiate between the present timeline versus flashbacks. The narrative mixed long-held family secrets together with a modern murder investigation.
Basically, this story reminds us that no matter how perfect a family appears on the outside, for the most part, we all have some skeletons in the ole' family closet.
I'm not sure I would really seek out other books by this author. Her writing style didn't really mesh with my taste. -
As far as modern thrillers go, for me, this one fell short of 'thrilling.'
I listened to it on audiobook and it was fine.
There were two narrators to differentiate between the present timeline versus flashbacks. The narrative mixed long-held family secrets together with a modern murder investigation.
Basically, this story reminds us that no matter how perfect a family appears on the outside, for the most part, we all have some skeletons in the ole' family closet.
I'm not sure I would really seek out other books by this author. Her writing style didn't really mesh with my taste. -
As far as modern thrillers go, for me, this one fell short of 'thrilling.'
June 3, 2016
I have read and enjoyed several of Lippman’s standalone novels. This one is eminently readable but because of its many echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird, I found myself focusing more on finding comparisons than enjoying the narrative.
Luisa (Lu) Brant, the daughter of a former state’s attorney in Maryland, has moved back into her childhood home with her father after the death of her husband. She has become the new state’s prosecutor for the county. There are two timelines. Lu (in first person narration) recollects growing up in Columbia; many of her memories are about the exploits of her older brother AJ and his group of friends. Alternating sections are set in the present: Lu prosecutes a homicide case in which a local misfit, Rudy Drysdale, is charged with the murder of a middle-aged woman. Eventually the past and the present merge as secrets from the past are revealed to have a connection to the murder case.
The echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM) begin with the first sentence. TKAM opens with “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow” (7). Wilde Lake (WL) begins with “When my brother was eighteen, he broke his arm in an accident . . . ”. In TKAM, Scout and Jem first meet their friend Dill “sitting looking at us” (11); in WL, AJ and Lu find Noel hiding in bushes spying on the Brant house. (Dill was supposedly based on Truman Capote, so it is no surprise that Noel is a homosexual.) Scout knows how to read when she starts school, as does Lu; both girls have difficulties with their first teachers. Scout is motherless, her mother having died of a heart attack (10), and has no memories of her mother; Lu is in the same situation. Scout describes her father Atticus as old: “He was much older than the parents of our contemporaries” (93) and his hobby is reading. Lu says her father is old and “Our father was not one for playing with us unless it was something brainy.” The Finches have a neighbour, Miss Maudie, with whom Atticus has a friendship; her home burns down but she looks forward to having a smaller house with more yard for flowers (77). Miss Maude in WL “seemed almost nonchalant about the damage being done. ‘I bought this place for the yard.’”
Events are similar in the two books. Scout beats up Walter Cunningham, a poor boy who makes her life difficult at school; Lu beats up Randy, who has “only two shirts that he alternates and even then, he always smells by Friday” and who teases her at school. Walter has dinner with the Finch family and Scout mocks his eating habits, behaviour for which she is reprimanded; Lu receives a “tongue lashing” for making comments about Randy’s eating with his fingers. Jem comes to his sister’s defense and Bob Ewell ends up dead. When Atticus thinks Jem may be charged with Ewell’s death, he insists that his son not be given preferential treatment: “’Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open. . . . I don’t want anybody saying, ‘Jem Finch . . . his daddy paid a mint to get him out of that’” (276). In WL, AJ defends someone and a man dies. When there is an investigation, AJ’s father “wanted to be as transparent as possible, to avoid any accusations of favoritism.” There is a rape in both books, each involving a poor girl whose bruises are on the right side of her face and whose father is left-handed. In TKAM, Atticus has sympathy for the rape victim, and in WL, Mr. Brant also tries to protect her as much as possible. There are similarities between the behaviour of Tom Robinson and that of Rudy Drysdale. Scout holds her father in high esteem, just as Lu does her father. Each protagonist learns some unpleasant truth about her father, though it is only in Go Set a Watchman that a grown up Jean Louise sees Atticus in a new light.
I could go on and on. Even phrases like “chiffarobe/chifforobe” and “white trash” are used in both books. Both novels are coming-of-age novels which also examine racism, classism, and sexism. The main difference between the two is that the latter has many family secrets whereas in TKAM, Atticus believes in honesty: “’When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em’” (92).
My point is that there are so many similarities that they distract from Lippman’s book. Lippman may have intentionally used TKAM as a framework, but her reliance seems excessive. Given the title Wilde Lake, I could not help but remember Oscar Wilde’s comment that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” That is not to say that Wilde Lake is a mediocre book; it’s just that its many parallels with To Kill a Mockingbird make Wilde Lake seem too derivative.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Luisa (Lu) Brant, the daughter of a former state’s attorney in Maryland, has moved back into her childhood home with her father after the death of her husband. She has become the new state’s prosecutor for the county. There are two timelines. Lu (in first person narration) recollects growing up in Columbia; many of her memories are about the exploits of her older brother AJ and his group of friends. Alternating sections are set in the present: Lu prosecutes a homicide case in which a local misfit, Rudy Drysdale, is charged with the murder of a middle-aged woman. Eventually the past and the present merge as secrets from the past are revealed to have a connection to the murder case.
The echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM) begin with the first sentence. TKAM opens with “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow” (7). Wilde Lake (WL) begins with “When my brother was eighteen, he broke his arm in an accident . . . ”. In TKAM, Scout and Jem first meet their friend Dill “sitting looking at us” (11); in WL, AJ and Lu find Noel hiding in bushes spying on the Brant house. (Dill was supposedly based on Truman Capote, so it is no surprise that Noel is a homosexual.) Scout knows how to read when she starts school, as does Lu; both girls have difficulties with their first teachers. Scout is motherless, her mother having died of a heart attack (10), and has no memories of her mother; Lu is in the same situation. Scout describes her father Atticus as old: “He was much older than the parents of our contemporaries” (93) and his hobby is reading. Lu says her father is old and “Our father was not one for playing with us unless it was something brainy.” The Finches have a neighbour, Miss Maudie, with whom Atticus has a friendship; her home burns down but she looks forward to having a smaller house with more yard for flowers (77). Miss Maude in WL “seemed almost nonchalant about the damage being done. ‘I bought this place for the yard.’”
Events are similar in the two books. Scout beats up Walter Cunningham, a poor boy who makes her life difficult at school; Lu beats up Randy, who has “only two shirts that he alternates and even then, he always smells by Friday” and who teases her at school. Walter has dinner with the Finch family and Scout mocks his eating habits, behaviour for which she is reprimanded; Lu receives a “tongue lashing” for making comments about Randy’s eating with his fingers. Jem comes to his sister’s defense and Bob Ewell ends up dead. When Atticus thinks Jem may be charged with Ewell’s death, he insists that his son not be given preferential treatment: “’Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open. . . . I don’t want anybody saying, ‘Jem Finch . . . his daddy paid a mint to get him out of that’” (276). In WL, AJ defends someone and a man dies. When there is an investigation, AJ’s father “wanted to be as transparent as possible, to avoid any accusations of favoritism.” There is a rape in both books, each involving a poor girl whose bruises are on the right side of her face and whose father is left-handed. In TKAM, Atticus has sympathy for the rape victim, and in WL, Mr. Brant also tries to protect her as much as possible. There are similarities between the behaviour of Tom Robinson and that of Rudy Drysdale. Scout holds her father in high esteem, just as Lu does her father. Each protagonist learns some unpleasant truth about her father, though it is only in Go Set a Watchman that a grown up Jean Louise sees Atticus in a new light.
I could go on and on. Even phrases like “chiffarobe/chifforobe” and “white trash” are used in both books. Both novels are coming-of-age novels which also examine racism, classism, and sexism. The main difference between the two is that the latter has many family secrets whereas in TKAM, Atticus believes in honesty: “’When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em’” (92).
My point is that there are so many similarities that they distract from Lippman’s book. Lippman may have intentionally used TKAM as a framework, but her reliance seems excessive. Given the title Wilde Lake, I could not help but remember Oscar Wilde’s comment that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” That is not to say that Wilde Lake is a mediocre book; it’s just that its many parallels with To Kill a Mockingbird make Wilde Lake seem too derivative.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
May 13, 2016
Talented storyteller, Laura Lippman returns following 2015 Hush Hush with her latest standalone, WILDE LAKE emotionally charged, complex- rich in character and dark family secrets.
Wilde Lake revolves around a family relationship between a daughter, father, and brother. Where the truth may not always set you free.
Family loyalty, secrets, deceptions, and mysteries of the past connect with the present. Should we leave the past, in the past? A family journey from Baltimore to the community of Columbia, Maryland. From 1980 to 2015.
Luisa "Lu" Brant has been elected the state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland (first woman holding the position). Her father, Andrew Jackson Brandt held this position previously. Her husband, Gabe dies (a scandal here, as well), and she and the children (twin eight-year-olds) move in with her father, in Columbia, Maryland.
Her father, from Virginia raised Lu and her older brother AJ. Her mother, Adele died when Lu was a week old, so she never really had any female influences except for the housekeeper (Teenzy). Her parents met in law school. Reminiscent of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch and her father’s quest for justice.
Alternating from thirty years prior-her childhood to the present. Her father is getting old, and his practice has been a charade for years. He loves Law and Order TV, and no longer reads or drives, nearly eighty.
Lu in her early forties, is sharp, and ambitious and has a new murder case. an investigation involving Rudy Drysdale, a homeless man, mentally disturbed drifter, accused of murdering a woman.
Some politics involved with her old boss, and of course the person she defeated for position of state attorney. Now she is coming full circle. She followed her dad’s footsteps instead of her brother. She has never lost a case in Howard County and she is not going to lose this one. Secrets, lies and tests of loyalty will come to the surface and begin to unravel, during the investigation.
What really happened with Rudy? How does this case relate to events years past? What happened years ago? What did he see and what did he know. He was loyal to AJ ? What did he have to lose? Always watching. Will Lu figure out the mystery. What did her brother leave out? People need to be held accountable. Was he a hero or not?
A tragedy occurred years ago and involved her brother. A death. Her father used his influence as the State's Attorney to see that the incident was swiftly resolved. Multi-layered, a family tragedy and mystery from 1980, the night of AJ’s graduation at Wilde Lake High. The party at Wild Lake, a tradition, a suburb, where teens stayed out all night. AJ was the son of state’s attorney, so things had to kept under wraps. Lu was kept out of the drama, the fallout, and it was not discussed.
While living in the same childhood town, many memories surface. When she was ten and he was eighteen, there was a lot of focus surrounding her brother. Soon she is questioning other things and how those events may be connected to her present case. What information was withheld from her?
With maturity she reflects back over the years which raises other questions. A cover-up? Protections. Loyalties. Morals, ethics, family. Tragedy and triumph. Painful memories. How many deaths can one family and town hold? Will tragedy and the truth change Lu, and discourage her from law?
Wilde Lake is more of a psychological domestic family mystery suspense, versus a crime thriller. A little different than her previous books; however, with Lippman’s own unique storytelling trademark style- an absorbing exploration of human family dynamics.
I listened to the audio version, narrated by Kathleen McInerney and Nicole Poole. Kathleen is one of my favorite narrators, delivering an intriguing performance. Fascinating, Lippman grew up in Columbia, Maryland (the setting for this book) and also graduated from Wilde Lake High School.
JDCMustReadBooks
Wilde Lake revolves around a family relationship between a daughter, father, and brother. Where the truth may not always set you free.
Family loyalty, secrets, deceptions, and mysteries of the past connect with the present. Should we leave the past, in the past? A family journey from Baltimore to the community of Columbia, Maryland. From 1980 to 2015.
Luisa "Lu" Brant has been elected the state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland (first woman holding the position). Her father, Andrew Jackson Brandt held this position previously. Her husband, Gabe dies (a scandal here, as well), and she and the children (twin eight-year-olds) move in with her father, in Columbia, Maryland.
Her father, from Virginia raised Lu and her older brother AJ. Her mother, Adele died when Lu was a week old, so she never really had any female influences except for the housekeeper (Teenzy). Her parents met in law school. Reminiscent of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch and her father’s quest for justice.
Alternating from thirty years prior-her childhood to the present. Her father is getting old, and his practice has been a charade for years. He loves Law and Order TV, and no longer reads or drives, nearly eighty.
Lu in her early forties, is sharp, and ambitious and has a new murder case. an investigation involving Rudy Drysdale, a homeless man, mentally disturbed drifter, accused of murdering a woman.
Some politics involved with her old boss, and of course the person she defeated for position of state attorney. Now she is coming full circle. She followed her dad’s footsteps instead of her brother. She has never lost a case in Howard County and she is not going to lose this one. Secrets, lies and tests of loyalty will come to the surface and begin to unravel, during the investigation.
What really happened with Rudy? How does this case relate to events years past? What happened years ago? What did he see and what did he know. He was loyal to AJ ? What did he have to lose? Always watching. Will Lu figure out the mystery. What did her brother leave out? People need to be held accountable. Was he a hero or not?
A tragedy occurred years ago and involved her brother. A death. Her father used his influence as the State's Attorney to see that the incident was swiftly resolved. Multi-layered, a family tragedy and mystery from 1980, the night of AJ’s graduation at Wilde Lake High. The party at Wild Lake, a tradition, a suburb, where teens stayed out all night. AJ was the son of state’s attorney, so things had to kept under wraps. Lu was kept out of the drama, the fallout, and it was not discussed.
While living in the same childhood town, many memories surface. When she was ten and he was eighteen, there was a lot of focus surrounding her brother. Soon she is questioning other things and how those events may be connected to her present case. What information was withheld from her?
With maturity she reflects back over the years which raises other questions. A cover-up? Protections. Loyalties. Morals, ethics, family. Tragedy and triumph. Painful memories. How many deaths can one family and town hold? Will tragedy and the truth change Lu, and discourage her from law?
Wilde Lake is more of a psychological domestic family mystery suspense, versus a crime thriller. A little different than her previous books; however, with Lippman’s own unique storytelling trademark style- an absorbing exploration of human family dynamics.
I listened to the audio version, narrated by Kathleen McInerney and Nicole Poole. Kathleen is one of my favorite narrators, delivering an intriguing performance. Fascinating, Lippman grew up in Columbia, Maryland (the setting for this book) and also graduated from Wilde Lake High School.
JDCMustReadBooks
March 1, 2017
Favorite Quotes:
‘Jonnie Forke.’ Lu, aware that her trouble with names and faces is a liability for a politician, plays her favorite private game of trying to construct a mnemonic trick. Stick a fork in her, she’s Jonnie. Heeeeeeeeere’s Jonnie – with a Forke for her butterface.
Noel taught us the valuable lesson that making a spectacle of yourself was sometimes the best way to get people to stop noticing you. Noel lived his life based on this premise, although he would have been heartbroken if he weren’t the center of attention when he wanted to be. He was that rare young person who understood exactly who he was what he needed – and that his parents, his friends, the world at large, were not ready for this information.
It is possible to anticipate something so ferociously then one day forget that it’s happening at all. Part of this is the passage to adulthood; birthdays fade in importance, holidays become something to be endured. I know there are grown-ups who still become excited about Christmas, although I find them suspect.
After our mother was gone, nothing the touched could be changed… AJ, meanwhile, would not speak of her at all. Although not generally selfish, he hoarded his memories of our mother as if they might evaporate in the open air.
My Review:
Wilde Lake was a smartly written and cleverly paced spider web of intricately woven family secrets that snared me and held me fast. It was stellar! The storyline was multi-layered and craftily exposed, and lushly detailed with vivid and evocative visuals. I enjoyed every timeline, flashback, secret, plot twist, and character. Laura Lippman is a gifted and skilled scribe. I reveled in her acumen and adored her character of Lu. Lu was whip-smart yet admittedly flawed and had no problem confessing her worst traits. She was overwhelmingly curious with a deep-seated competitive need to “win” as a child as well as an adult, and these intelligent traits caused considerable consternation to her taciturn father. As a child she considered herself an ever-alert sleuth, always watchful but not always able to comprehend what she observed, but wily enough to store it away for future leverage. I took great enjoyment in her efforts to make sense of confusing data through the limited tools and reference materials available to her - the baby-sitter’s soap operas, her father’s dictionary, and her favorite television program of Angie Dickinson’s Police Women. How disillusioning it would be to discover your entire childhood was a prevarication, or to use a current buzz phrase, couched in alternate facts. I was enthralled and engrossed with the story throughout, although the revelations in the final chapters were rapid, stunning, and heart stopping. I am breathless with awe.
‘Jonnie Forke.’ Lu, aware that her trouble with names and faces is a liability for a politician, plays her favorite private game of trying to construct a mnemonic trick. Stick a fork in her, she’s Jonnie. Heeeeeeeeere’s Jonnie – with a Forke for her butterface.
Noel taught us the valuable lesson that making a spectacle of yourself was sometimes the best way to get people to stop noticing you. Noel lived his life based on this premise, although he would have been heartbroken if he weren’t the center of attention when he wanted to be. He was that rare young person who understood exactly who he was what he needed – and that his parents, his friends, the world at large, were not ready for this information.
It is possible to anticipate something so ferociously then one day forget that it’s happening at all. Part of this is the passage to adulthood; birthdays fade in importance, holidays become something to be endured. I know there are grown-ups who still become excited about Christmas, although I find them suspect.
After our mother was gone, nothing the touched could be changed… AJ, meanwhile, would not speak of her at all. Although not generally selfish, he hoarded his memories of our mother as if they might evaporate in the open air.
My Review:
Wilde Lake was a smartly written and cleverly paced spider web of intricately woven family secrets that snared me and held me fast. It was stellar! The storyline was multi-layered and craftily exposed, and lushly detailed with vivid and evocative visuals. I enjoyed every timeline, flashback, secret, plot twist, and character. Laura Lippman is a gifted and skilled scribe. I reveled in her acumen and adored her character of Lu. Lu was whip-smart yet admittedly flawed and had no problem confessing her worst traits. She was overwhelmingly curious with a deep-seated competitive need to “win” as a child as well as an adult, and these intelligent traits caused considerable consternation to her taciturn father. As a child she considered herself an ever-alert sleuth, always watchful but not always able to comprehend what she observed, but wily enough to store it away for future leverage. I took great enjoyment in her efforts to make sense of confusing data through the limited tools and reference materials available to her - the baby-sitter’s soap operas, her father’s dictionary, and her favorite television program of Angie Dickinson’s Police Women. How disillusioning it would be to discover your entire childhood was a prevarication, or to use a current buzz phrase, couched in alternate facts. I was enthralled and engrossed with the story throughout, although the revelations in the final chapters were rapid, stunning, and heart stopping. I am breathless with awe.
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