"Lady in the lake" by Laura Lippman

An audio book.

It's multi-PoV, one PoV per chapter. Maddy and Cleo are the main PoVs. There are many others - Cleo's son, the psychic, a footballer whose signature Ferdie asks for, etc.

I like the opening chapter - more overture than prologue. The narrator, Cleo Sherwood (black), sees Maddie with her husband Milton (40) at a temple near a lake. His father's died. Cleo had children with different fathers, had lived with her parents, then left (when 26?). Now she's dead. She was in water until Maddy provoked investigation. Maddy will leave her husband a year later.

Baltimore 1965. Maddy's been married 18 years. They have a son. Milton's invited Wally over at short notice. She and Wally were at school together. He wasn't much to look at when young. He's changed. Now he's a TV presenter. Maddy wonders when to split up with her husband - she's wasted her life. When 37 she leaves home. She's expected her son to go with her, but he stays behind. She starts an affair with a young black policeman Ferdie (interracial marriages aren't allowed). She wasn't a virgin when married - she's secretive about the man concerned. She starts working in a newspaper. Bob is her line-manager. He hides the fact that his wife has MS and is wheelchaired. She discovers, by chance, the body of a missing white girl. A man working in a fish-shop is arrested. He pleads madness. Also by chance a phonecall from her leads to Cleo's body being found. Cleo used to work in the Flamingo Bar. The owner and Ferdie are friendly.

Maddy's first assignment is to attend the birthday celebration of a black policewoman. She comforted Cleo years before when Milton bullied her. She visits the psychic Cleo's parents went to, then her parents, then the Flamingo bar. Cleo had a boyfriend who wanted to keep their relationship secret. The white barman (Tommy) in his PoV section, tells us that he was told to get rid of Cleo by Taylor, a black who owned several dry-cleaning shops and had political ambitions. Maddie interviews his wife.

We learn that when Maddy was 17 she fell for an artist. When she got pregnant he paid for a divorce. Her marriage looked look being childless. She tracked the artist down, had sex with him, and had a baby 9 months later.

Tommy confesses. Outside the police station Cleo's father shoots him.

Maddy might be having second thoughts about divorce, then finds out that Milton is soon to marry a 25 year old. After a tip-off from Ferdie she interviews the mother of the fish-shop worker. The mother's suspected of being an accompliced, The mother stabs Maddy. In hospital, drugged, she's visited by Cleo, who says that she and the barman dumped her flatmate's body in the lake. Or was Maddy hallucinating? Ferdie has to resign because of the leak.

20 years later, Maddy (Pulitzer shortlisted) is giving a talk to a women's group. She has a lover. Ferdie's become rich and happy. The dry-cleaner has moved far away (to be with Cleo?). Her interfering has caused some deaths, but she doesn't regret it.

I like it.

The initial Jew/non-Jew theme was replaced by the black/non-black one.

Other reviews

• Jen Michalski (although Maddie is given more page time than Cleo, Cleo’s desires feel surprisingly clearer and more relatable, even if she is narrating from beyond the grave. Part of it be may that Cleo’s passages are in the first person and Maddie’s in the third, but part of it has to do with how closely Maddie guards her relationship with Fergie and other secrets)