63 pages 2 hours read

Lady in the Lake

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary and Study Guide

Overview

Lady in the Lake is a 2019 historical crime novel written by Laura Lippman and published by William Morrow. It was inspired by two historic true crime cases from Baltimore: The murder of 11-year-old Esther Lebowitz and the disappearance and discovery of the remains of Shirley Parker, both in 1969. Lippman, a former reporter and author of more than 20 crime novels, including Charm City (1997), Every Secret Thing (2003), and Wilde Lake (2016), took inspiration for Lady in the Lake from her experience working at the Baltimore Sun and growing up in Columbia, Maryland. She is the recipient of the Edgar, Nero, Gumshoe, Seamus, Agatha, and Anthony awards for her work in fiction. A forthcoming series also titled Lady in the Lake was optioned by Apple TV+ and will star Natalie Portman as Maddie Schwartz and Moses Ingram as Cleo Sherwood.

This guide uses the 2020 paperback P.S. tie-in edition of the novel.

Content Warning: This novel involves themes of racism, racial violence, police violence, murder, statutory rape, murder of a child, fetishism, antisemitism, drug use, and abortion. Note that the “lover” that the main character Maddie alludes to having when she was 17 is revealed to be a man in his forties.

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