![]() the form of address that would create a narrow bridge between Mrs. pending her divorce, but after going to work at an afternoon newspaper and taking a lover, she thinks of herself as something else, a thing for which she has no name. When Maddie leaves her conventional and basically uninteresting husband to strike out on her own, she remains a Mrs. The arc of Maddie’s character - her mid-1960s “journey,” if you like - reflects the gulf which then existed between what women were expected to be and what they aspired to be. ![]() Lippman, who is the closest writer America has to Ruth Rendell, is after bigger game. What makes this book special, even extraordinary, is that the crossword puzzle aspect is secondary. Theirs are the murders investigated by Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz in Laura Lippman’s haunting new novel. I also care who killed Eunetta “Cleo” Sherwood and Tessie Fine. In a 1945 essay in which he dismissed most detective and mystery fiction as little better than crossword puzzles, the critic Edmund Wilson asked a question that still rankles readers who enjoy the genre: “Who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd?” The answer, over the 75 or so years since, seems to be “millions of people do.” That would include me. ![]()
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