'What the Dead Know' is a crime thriller by Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman is an American author of detective fiction.-Biography:Lippmann was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a well known and respected writer at the Baltimore Sun, and Madeline Lippman, a retired school librarian for the...

 published in 2007. The story, set in Baltimore in 2005, is about an investigation into a woman who claims to be Heather Bethany, a girl who had gone missing thirty years before. The book was critically acclaimed. It won the 2007 Quill Award

Quill Awards

The Quill Award was an American literary award that ran for three years in 2005-07. It was a "consumer-driven award created to inspire reading while promoting literacy." The Quills Foundation, the organization behind the Quill Award, was supported by a number of notable media corporations,...

 in the mystery/suspense/thriller category and 2008 Anthony Award

Anthony Award

The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher , one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America....

for Best Novel.

Critical reception

Reviewers saw What the Dead Know as a success both as a well-crafted mystery and as an emotionally powerful novel. The Guardian called it a "realistic and poignant detailing of emotional hide-and-seek, ... an excellent mystery and a thoughtful exploration of the nature and effects of grief and loss." The reader is kept guessing to the end as to the identity of the mystery woman.

Main characters, as first introduced

• The Bethany family: Dave and Miriam (née Toles); daughters Heather and Sunny
• Penelope Jackson – registered owner of a car in a highway accident
• Detective Kevin Infante – lead investigator
• Harold Lenhardt – Infante's sergeant
• Gloria Bustamante – lawyer
• Nancy Porter – police researcher and Infante's former police partner
• Kay Sullivan – social worker at St. Agnes Hospital; children Seth and Grace
• Dr. Schumeier – psychiatrist at St. Agnes Hospital
• Chester "Chet" V. Willoughby IV – retired detective
• Stan Dunham – former Pennsylvania property owner
• Irene – a foster mother
• Tony Dunham – man killed in a Florida house fire
• Roy Pincharelli – music teacher
• Joe – art gallery owner
• Javier – art gallery employee
• Jeff and Thelma Baumgarten – couple in fidelity crisis
• Ruth Leibig – Ohio school girl
• Estelle and Herb Turner – practitioners of Fivefold Path spirituality
• Priscilla "Syl" Browne – employee at "Swiss Colony" restaurant