What the Dead Know: A Novel

The New York Times bestselling author returns to the compelling terrain of Every Secret Thing and To the Power of Three with this indelible story of crime and vengeance in which the past becomes all-too-present.

When he’s called to the scene of an accident detective Kevin Infante is drawn into a shocking and puzzling crime that still haunts the Baltimore P.D. Twenty years ago, two little girls were kidnapped from a shopping mall, igniting fear and anger throughout the city. 

Now, a clearly disoriented woman involved in the accident claims to be one of the missing girls. But instead of closing the case, her appearance marks the beginning of a nightmare that will once again rock Baltimore and threaten everyone it touches. The woman claims one of Baltimore’s beloved cops snatched her and her sister. Is it the truth-or the ravings of a damaged mind? There isn’t a shred of evidence to support her story: The cop is dead and her parents can’t verify the woman is even their daughter, for both girls were adopted and do not share their DNA. And who is the body in the unmarked grave the girl reveals? 

With the department’s reputation, a dead man’s honor, and his own badge on the line, Infante must go back to a past he barely knows to find answers—and maybe even justice—once and for all.

Thirty years ago, the two Bethany sisters, ages 11 and 15, disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They never returned, their bodies were never found, and only painful questions remain. How do you kidnap two girls from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness? Now, decades later, in the aftermath of a rush-hour hit-and-run accident, a clearly disoriented woman is claiming to be Heather, the younger Bethany sister. Not a shred of evidence supports her story, and every lead she reluctantly offers takes the police to another dead end—a dying, incoherent man; a razed house; a missing grave. But there is something she knows about that terrible day . . . and about a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart by an unthinkable tragedy and the fissures it revealed in a seemingly perfect household.

“Laura Lippman has exploded the boundaries of the mystery genre to become one of the most significant social realists of our time.” - Madison Smartt Bell

“Laura Lippman’s stories aren’t just mysteries; they are deeply moving explorations of the human heart. She is quite simply one of the best crime novelists writing today.” - Tess Gerritsen, author of THE MEPHISTO CLUB

“The best mystery writing around.” - Village Voice Literary Supplement

“Razor-sharp.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Lippman writes with such a deft touch and with such keen insight.” - Chicago Sun-Times