This is a review of the advanced copy “The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

The Most Dangerous Thing is a little slower to start than Lippman’s best but is well worth some patience. Lippman is known for her character-driven mystery novels.

This is a book about the lives of five friends and how the events of one summer affected the rest of their lives.
Mickey, Gwen, Tim, Sean and “Go-Go” live in the same neighborhood and are all friends in the mid-1970s, but their friendship changes drastically one night. Without revealing too much, the premise involves a group of friends (three brothers – two in their early teens and one aged nine – and two girls aged 12) who play together in 1979 in an isolated neighborhood near Leakin Park.

The book is rich in the compassion and insight into flawed human nature that has become a Lippman trademark while telling an absolutely gripping story.

This reviewer rates the book 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. ( )

I have never read Lippman before, but I was curious about her because all her books are set in Baltimore (where I have now lived for a year). I was fortunate to get this ARC, and I did enjoy it. Lippman's writing propels this story at top speed. In my mind, this book is perfect for summer reading - - suspenseful, fast paced, and a real page turner. I also love how Lippman weaves in all sorts of details about Baltimore. Not merely about the geography, but details about life here that are uniquely native to the area.

In this book, five childhood friends are forced to revisit their youth when one of the five commits suicide.My only serious qualm about the book is that it really touches on the very sensitive subject of sexual abuse of a child, yet not in a way that really made me feel sympathetic for the victims. I was curious about what happened to them, yes. Caring about them, not so much. It was almost handled too factually. I didn't feel anyone's horror about what had happened. It could have been a robbery or a car crash for the amount of emotional angst involved.

There was also a very odd choice of narrative voice in portions of the book. . .when the story discusses the group of five friends, the narration uses "We", but clearly no individual in the group is the narrator . . .and that struck me as sort of odd. But all in all, if you are just looking for a read that kind of grabs you and doesn't let go - - I think this does just that. However, the caveat here is that I don't read much of that type of book (thriller/mystery) - - so my opinion of this one really isn't against the genre as a whole. ( )

This book has been shockingly bad so far. All but one of the characters seem very much alike, so it is difficult for me to keep track of who is who. The only interesting character dies early on in the book Go-Go or Gordon and the rest of the book this death brings the case of characters together and makes them face a tragedy that happened when they were kids.
Lippman is a much better writer than this book would make you think. ( )

I trudged through over half of this with immense difficulty. First we hear from a group of characters in the present day. We then go back in time to when the five children were a gang and something bad happened - these bits are told through an omniscient sixth gang member who doesn;t exist, so it refers to we and us even though they weren't there....

THEN we get the stories of each of the parents of the five kids and it just gets increasingly tedious as nothing much really happens. It is hard to care about any of the characters when you get such a strange introductions to so many of them.

I registered this book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14155025

Five friends, three boys and two girls, grew up together. In 1979, a man dies. We know little else about the incident until they are grown and are once again thrown together when one of their number dies.

I read this so long ago I no longer remember details but the essence stays with me. It is a dark, brooding novel that kept me on edge and reminded me why I like the multifaceted Laura Lippman. ( )