I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman ~REVIEW~

I’d Know You Anywhere 
by Laura Lippman
Wm Morrow 2011

How do you feel about your teenage years? The things that you did? Or that were done to you? Are you ashamed of some? Do you try to hide them away? If so, have they haunted you through the balance of your life? If you face that demon, will you finally be able to forgive yourself to be free of it?

Laura Lippman is an excellent writer. We are immersed in the characters, feeling like they are people we know and care about. The stories build block by block. The patience of the craft allows the emotional quandaries to evolve in us as well. What will Elisa do, I kept thinking as I turned the pages. Will she be victimized again? Will she take charge of her life. If so, will she change?

In i’d know you anywhere, Ms. Lippman draws into the story of Elizabeth who is abducted and held captive by a killer for 6 weeks or so, raped at the end before she is rescued. She is present when he abducts and murders another girl. The killer is on death row, awaiting execution for 20 years.

It is now many years later. Elizabeth has married and long ago adopted the name Eliza. She has a daughter about the same age as when she was abducted, who knows nothing of her mother’s trauma. Eliza is contacted by an apparent do-gooder trying to help the murderer and the mother of the murdered girl. The killer has a plan to get Eliza to recant her testimony to save him from execution. He threatens to publish a story branding her as his equal in crime.

Eliza must deal with her own emotions, facing the emotions she has buried her whole life. Her sister, and now dead parents, also suffered from the abduction and rape. She and Eliza need to come to terms. Will Eliza be the passive person who did not intervene in the murder? Is there some secret about the crimes yet to be revealed? Will Eliza’s husband turn on her as this life-long drama is brought out all over again.

i’d know you anywhere is a wonderful read. I feel like I know these characters, as if I lived this with them. Having finished the story, I would like to have a glass of wine with Eliza . I like and admire her. You will as well.

I look forward to the next Laura Lippman story.

Warms, Cym

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