In the afterword to her latest novel, WILDE LAKE, Laura Lippman acknowledges drawing inspiration from the great classic TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. While the references to Harper Lee’s masterpiece are not always overt, they are there in both details and themes. Yet Lippman is true to herself here --- using the setting to cradle her story, centering it on a compelling female protagonist, and letting characters solve crimes while allowing for moral ambiguities.

WILDE LAKE takes place not in Baltimore where many of Lippman’s books are set, but in the suburb of Columbia, Maryland, a community with a vaguely utopian vision. It examines the damage done --- to individuals, families and communities --- when lies and half-truths are allowed to fester and justice is thwarted. The themes of small-town darkness and skeletons in proverbial familial closets are nothing unique, but Lippman composes them in interesting ways. Despite being a book about mysteries and crimes, it is very character-driven.

"There are plenty of exciting revelations as it unfolds and lots of blurred lines, made all the more fuzzy by the unreliable memories, perceptions and agendas of the characters."

Luisa “Lu” Brant has recently secured her dream job, that of state’s attorney, the same position held by her much respected and revered father, Andrew Jackson Brant. A tough, ambitious career women, raising her twins by herself after the death of her husband, Lu has come a long way from the lonely girl who spent her days tagging along after her big brother. AJ, eight years older than Lu, is smart, popular, handsome and talented. But he and his tight-knit and diverse group of high school friends are hiding dark secrets that begin to come to light years later as Lu investigates a local murder.

In 1980, on the night of AJ’s graduation party, a terrible act of violence takes place. The events of that evening were never fully resolved, and the recent murder brings them, inadvertently, into focus. For the first time in her life, Lu must look critically at her charismatic brother and their powerful father. As she does, she uncovers truths about the mother she never knew, in turn revealing truths about her father as well. What AJ hides and what the elder Brant conceals are quite different indeed, but what is revealed to Lu in the story by each are equally difficult and transformative.

The surprises and disclosure, about the past and the present, are perhaps secondary here to the overarching themes that Lippman tackles. Ideas about family, honesty, justice, ambition and more make the novel richer than an average crime story. There are plenty of exciting revelations as it unfolds and lots of blurred lines, made all the more fuzzy by the unreliable memories, perceptions and agendas of the characters. Lu is a dynamic figure, though not always likable, which makes her mostly fun to read about. In some ways, WILDE LAKE is a bit more of an emotional outing for Lippman, but it still has a finely honed and very sharp edge.