Book Review: Every Secret Thing

Reviewed By: Ali Karim - RAM

Every Secret Thing     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Laura Lippman
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character

So even Laura Lippman has decided to take a break from her series character and enter stand-alone territory. So what was the result? Well if this is not her ‘breakthrough’ book then I’m an inmate of Shutter Island. Every Secret Thing is a terrific novel, that starts with a tragic premise. Two young girls, Alice and Ronnie (5th Graders) leave a friends ‘swimming’ party early after causing problems. It’s a hot Baltimore evening and on the way home notice an infant Olivia Barnes, in a pram (baby-carriage) on the steps of a quiet house. The nine-month old infant dies while in their possession, but neither Ronnie or Alice admit to murder. There is a media-frenzy as apart from the sensation of a child murder, we have the added dimension that the infant was black while Alice and Ronnie are white. The children are found guilty and sent away by the State. Lippman then takes these strands and in a journalist style peels away layer upon layer to reveal a deep study of a group of women locked under the cloud of evil. It works also as a character study of mothers, daughters, lawyers and the police, and how the past can distort the future like the way a photograph curls if thrown on a fire. When the two girls are released seven years later, tensions and cracks appear, as just as the girls taste freedom, another infant goes missing. This is an excellent and very ‘different’ type of novel. The writing style is sparse, and reveals the hidden relationships that bind invisibly and makes you really think about the moral landscape that peppers our lives. It is both hideous as well as enchanting as the plot snakes though the moral jungle. Less ‘Gone, Baby, Gone’ and more ‘Welcome to the big league Miss Lippman’.

Ali Karim - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ali Karim - RAM