Synopses & Reviews
The three girls have been inseparable best friends since the third grade -- Josie, the athletic one; Perri, the brilliant, acerbic drama queen; and Kat, the beauty, who also has brains, grace, and a heart open to all around her. But their last day of high school becomes their final day together after one of them brings a gun to school to resolve a mysterious feud. When the police arrive, they discover two wounded girls, one so critically that she is not expected to recover. The third girl is dead, killed instantly by a shot to the heart.
What transpired that morning at Glendale High rocks the foundation of an affluent community in Baltimore's distant suburbs, a place that has barelyrecovered from an earlier, more comprehensible tragedy. For the shell-shocked parents, teachers, administrators, and students, healing must begin with answers to the usual questions -- but only if the answers are safe ones, answers that will lead back to one girl and one family and absolve everyone else.
For Homicide Sgt. Harold Lenhardt, this case is a mystery with more twists than these grief-stricken suburbanites are willing to acknowledge -- and the sole lucid survivor, a girl with a teenager's uncanny knack for stonewalling, strikes him as being less than honest. What is she concealing? Is she trying to protect herself or someone else? Even the simplest secrets can kill -- and kill again if no one is willing to confront them.
Breathtaking in its emotional depth, powerful, provocative, and consistently surprising, Laura Lippman's To the Power of Three carries the crime novel into richer, more fertile territory. It is the crowning achievement to date in an already exemplary literary career.
Review
“Every Secret Thing is an American-cheeseburger version of Highsmiths bloody filet mignon, and that suited me fine.” Nick Hornby on Every Secret Thing
Review
“Wonderfully paced, realyl well crafted....The best book of hers that Ive read.” Kate Atkinson, author of Case Histories
Review
“Lippman is a pro at finding fresh way to tell compelling stories.” Orlando Sentinel
Synopsis
Three former best friends are discovered shot in a locked girls' restroom at a suburban Baltimore high school--one is dead, one is critically injured from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the third is clearly lying.
Synopsis
One of the most acclaimed authors in crime fiction pens a realistic and surprising tale about three high school girls who have been friends since childhood, the secrets that pull them apart, and the ultimate betrayal.
Synopsis
“Powerful….A gripping tale that is a mystery only in the same sense as
To Kill a Mockingbird was….Brilliant, insightful, moving.”
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Chicago Sun-TimesThere are excellent reasons why New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman has won the Edgar®, Agatha, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, and every other major award the mystery genre has to offer. To the Power of Three is just one of those reasons. Lippmans brilliant and disturbing tale of three inseparable high school girlfriends in an affluent Baltimore suburb who share dark secrets literally until death, To the Power of Three is this “writing powerhouse” (USA Today), who has “exploded the boundaries of the mystery genre to become one of the most significant social realists of our time” (Madison Smartt Bell) operating at the very top of her game. Not merely crime fiction, but fiction that gets to the deep psychological, emotional, and human roots of a terrible crime, Lippmans novel is one that will not be easily forgotten—a must read for fans of Kate Atkinson, Tana French, Jodi Picoult, and Harlan Coben
About the Author
Laura Lippman was a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore Sun for twelve years. Her Tess Monaghan novels -- The Last Place, The Sugar House, Baltimore Blues, Charm City, Butchers Hill, and In Big Trouble -- have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony, and Nero Wolfe Awards, and In a Strange City was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel Every Secret Thing. Lippman lives in Baltimore, Maryland.