September 13, 2010

BOOKS: I'd Know You Anywhere, Laura Lippman (2010)

A promising setup never really goes anywhere in this disappointing novel.

In 1985, 15-year-old Elizabeth Lerner was kidnapped, held prisoner for six weeks, and raped by her captor before being released. Twenty-five years later, she's Eliza Benedict, living a reasonably happy suburban life, when she's unexpectedly contacted by her captor. He's on death row, having been convicted of murdering one of several other girls he'd kidnapped -- Eliza was the only one he didn't kill -- and wants to talk to her.

That could be the setup for a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game between Eliza and Walter, but we don't really get one. (You want a better novel on similar themes? Read Belinda Bauer's Blacklands.) The flashback sequences to the weeks Elizabeth spent with Walter are better than the present-day story, but even they are marred by the fact that Walter isn't a very convincing character (and when we meet current-day Walter, he's changed so much that it's hard to believe he's the same guy). The story limps along, with nothing much happening, and the ending is seriously anticlimactic.

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