The Most Dangerous Thing

Laura Lippman

Aug 2011 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

“One of the best novelists around, period.”
—Washington Post

“Lippman has enriched literature as a whole.
—Chicago Sun-Times

One of the most acclaimed novelists in America today, Laura Lippman has greatly expanded the boundaries of mystery fiction and psychological suspense with her Tess Monaghan p.i. series and her New York Times bestselling standalone novels (What the Dead Know, Life Sentences, I’d Know You Anywhere, etc.). With The Most Dangerous Thing, the multiple award winning author—recipient of the Anthony, Edgar®, Shamus, and Agatha Awards, to name but a few—once again demonstrates how storytelling is done to perfection. Set once again in the well-wrought environs of Lippman’s beloved Baltimore, it is the shadowy tale of a group of onetime friends forced to confront a dark past they’ve each tried to bury following the death of one of their number. Rich in the compassion and insight into flawed human nature that has become a Lippman trademark while telling an absolutely gripping story, The Most Dangerous Thing will not be confined by genre restrictions, reaching out instead to captive a wide, diverse audience, from Harlan Coben and Kate Atkinson fans to readers of Jodi Picoult and Kathryn Stockett.

Ratings and reviews

In the Baltimore area, five young people meet and bond. They form a friendship and consider themselves like the five arms of a starfish. Their names are: Gwen, the Halloran brothers, Tim, Sean and Go Go, and the other woman in the group, Mickey Wyckoff. They lived in a middle-class area where their parents didn't need to monitor their activities. The story moves from current time to the mid 1970s. In the current time, Gwen returns to her childhood home to care for her father who had taken a fall and hurt his hip. She runs into Sean Halloran who tells her that his brother, Go Go has died from suicide. We learn about the characters lives since childhood. Gwen is married to a doctor but doesn't know if she wants to remain in the house where her husband is the only thing that matters. In 1978, the friends often played in Leaken Park and while exploring came upon a deserted cabin that was currently being used by a homeless man. Because of the man's animals, they called him Chicken George. Late in the next summer, Gwen was dating Sean and one day Mickey and Go Go went to the cabin where there was an incident involving Chicken George. There are different versions of what happened but the incident remained in the children's minds and their parents minds, thereafter. The novel is told in a leisurly pace to match the events of the time. It is entertaining but left me saddened that the innocence of childhood is such a fleeting thing.

Lostresplatas....loved it..need I say more. This was a great book. I will be reading more from this author.

About the author

Since 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.