Lippman mystery the final book of 2006

My final book of 2006.

Laura Lippman’s To the Power of Three is a pleasant diversion. The book is a one-off by the creator of the Tess Monaghan series. It’s the story of three girls, friends since grade school. As high school graduation approaches, one of them is dead, another dying and one, who has a bullet wound in her foot, has a secret she isn’t telling.

As with Lippman’s 2003 novel, Every Secret Thing, To the Power of Three is absorbed with the insular culture of Baltimore schoolgirls. There’s a mystery at the heart of this novel, but what happened isn’t nearly as why it happened.

Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series are superior to her one-offs, in part, because she is so skillful in bringing Tess and her friends and family to life. In To the Power of Three the characters are less fully realized.

Tomorrow – my entire book list for ’06.