Meanwhile, the body of Cleo Sherwood is found in a lake, and Maddie is desperate to know how she ended up there, but she seems to be the only one who’s interested. Fortunately for Maddie, she’s given ample opportunities to prove herself, and it’s not long before she manages to get her name on a few popular stories. She dreams of becoming a reporter, but with absolutely no experience in the field, she knows she’ll have to start off at the bottom and work her way up. Through a series of complicated events I won’t go into here, Maddie talks herself into a job at a local newspaper.

Now, all she has to do is put her plan into action. Suddenly, Maddie knows exactly how she wants to leave her mark on the world. But when she discovers the body of a missing eleven-year-old girl, her life gets a lot more interesting. Her neighbors appear quite suspicious of her presence in their midst, and no one she approaches is willing to let down their guard and get to know her for who really is. Living in a slightly seedy apartment in a poorer area of Baltimore isn’t quite what Maddie had in mind. Now, she’ll be free to explore the parts of herself her husband never wanted to get to know, and maybe she’ll even find a way she can make a difference to the world at large while she’s at it. Sure, it means her relationship with her teenaged son will be strained for the next little while, and her social standing has plummeted to something approaching non-existent, but in Maddie’s mind, it’s all worth it. Maddie Schwartz has just walked out on her life, and she doesn’t regret it one little bit. Not only does this novel deliver a fascinating mystery, but it also explores the darkest parts of the human heart and mind as it unearths dangerous secrets.

No one seems to know who she is, nor do they seem all that interested in finding out, so housewife-turned-reporter Maddie Schwartz decides to solve the case for reasons of her own. In Lady in the Lake, Laura Lippman sweeps readers back in time to 1960s Baltimore, where the body of a young, African-American woman is found floating in a lake.

Laura lippman lady in the lake