I'd Know You Anywhere

A COMPELLING STORY OF CAPTIVE AND CAPTOR

Prepare to be mesmerized, totally enthralled, and left with your mind questioning the meaning of true justice. Laura Lippman, author of the acclaimed Tess Monaghan series and last year's best selling Life Sentences, shows her mettle as a writer of intense, character driven, psychological dramas with the superb I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE.
This is a story that will linger with you long after you've read the last page or heard the last word.

Eliza Benedict is a seemingly unflappable mother of two living in suburban Maryland with her husband, Peter, and two children. The eldest is Isobel who has chosen to be called "Iso," although her father thinks it should be "Izzo" or people will see it as short for "isotope." She's a difficult teenager seeming to dislike everything since the family's return to America after six years in England. The Benedict son, 8-year-old Albie, is an affable child often plagued by nightmares.

All seems relatively normal in the household until the day a letter arrives - a "real letter" as Iso calls it addressed to "Elizabeth," the name she used "before" as Eliza now terms it. The "before" refers to before she was kidnapped the summer she was 15 by Walter Bowman, held captive for almost six weeks and then raped before miraculously finding herself free. The letter is from Bowman who is now on Death Row for killing another young girl and suspected of killing more. He wants to talk to Elizabeth as he still calls her.

Eliza has successfully managed to compartmentalize what happened to her that long ago summer. Peter knows about most of it, and the children know nothing. She believed that she had kept herself hidden from anyone connected with that event - from the unscrupulous writer who had penned a tacky version of her time with Bowman, from the press who might like to revive the story now that Bowman's execution date is nearing, and from Bowman himself.

She fears not only for herself but for her family, yet she also finds that she unable to totally escape from the control Bowman once held over her. Why did he let her live while the other girls died? Did she owe him anything? Does she owe a debt to the families of the other victims? Eliza answers his letter hoping that will be the end of it, but he asks for a phone call. He knows what strings to pull just as she recognizes the terrifying sociopath he is and the man he believes himself to be.

Alternating between past and present Lippman's story is scrupulously plotted as she details the affect the kidnappings have had not only on the victims and their families, but on others as well. These characters are clearly drawn, not only physically but psychologically as the story builds to a surprising denouement.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, by Laura Lippman,

As a teenager, Elizabeth was kidnapped by a man who was later convicted of killing another young woman and sent to death row. Elizabeth returns to her family, who move to a different area in Maryland and she resumes her teenage life. She changes her name to Eliza and goes on with her life, gets through college and marries a good man, Peter Benedict. As Eliza Benedict, she has two children and a happy, if serene, life as wife and mother. Twenty-five years pass from the crimes of 1985 and by 2008 Bowman, the kidnapper, has reached the end of his appeals and his date with death approaches. Eliza receives a letter from Bowman as the result of Eliza's photograph appearing in the society section of a local magazine that Walter read in prison...Exciting, intriguing reading!

6 out of 9 people found this review helpful.

An interesting book

This book is not what I would consider an easy, cozy read, but it is worth the time it takes to finish it. It contrasts three women, all of whose lives have been significantly impacted by one man - a man on death row for crimes against young women.

I can't honestly say I liked any of the women, and usually that is the end of a novel for me - but in this case there was enough good in one of them to keep me reading, and enough situational sympathy for another that I found myself wondering if under the same circumstances I might not become very like her.

The book surprised me in the end, and made me think about life and circumstances in ways I haven't before. For that alone it was worth reading.

This isn't a quick beach read, but it's a good book for autumn and winter, with a cup of tea, a cozy fire, and time for thought and introspection.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

Not my kind of book..

I picked this book up because the concept seemed like it could have been interesting, and it had relatively high reviews. I ended up finishing the book only because I hate to start a book and not finish it. Getting through was work though..

"I'd Know You Anywhere" was very slow going from the start. I found myself very bored two chapters in and it was hard for me to read more than a few pages at a time without pushing myself to go on. Only once or twice in the entirety of the book did I find myself actually wanting to read on and discover what happened next.

Beyond the fact that it was slow going, I felt the author was missing key descriptive passages. Where she over-explained and described certain scenes/houses/landscapes I felt she under-described the characters. The main character "Eliza" is a red head with kinky hair and a "shapely" body. That's about all I gathered. Her children weren't really described at all until well into the book, and other characters weren't even described at all.

I also found the authors writing style struck me as cheap and tawdry. The [brand] name dropping just stomped all over my nerves. Perhaps that's just not a style of writing I like, but the constant references to particular brand names and products just seemed ridiculous and I felt it will leave the book very dated in ten years.
At times it seemed the author was using bigger words than the story.

Certain characters (Trudy Tackett) were randomly introduced and had absolutely no purpose to add to the story line. It seemed like just a way to bounce the story around and draw it out..

The entire story hinted all along at some large unknown secret with absolutely no hints or indication as to what the big mystery was. The big "mystery" which didn't even climax until twenty or so pages to the end of the book was in the end pretty predictable and anti-climactic.

Overall, just not something I'd really recommend.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

I'd Know You Anywhere forces you to constantly reassess the appropriateness of human interaction and to consider the boundaries that exist within all of us.

This book is part mystery and part psychological thriller and although mystery is not my thing, the psychological thriller part is. I'm fascinated by the human mind and the complexity of human relationships. The relationship between Eliza(beth) and Walter is disturbing at times. Lippman manages to create sympathy where no sympathy should exist. Walter is a serial killer, but there are times when I understood where he was coming from. As disturbing as this is for me to admit, it helped me understand Eliza(beth) and why she would even consider having a conversation with this man after what he did to her.

The mechanics of control and the lack thereof are big here. Walter can read Eliza(beth) pretty well. He also knows how to push her buttons and as much as Eliza(beth) wants to, she cannot put him completely out of her life. She has her own demons to battle and as the lone survivor, she is often misunderstood by the other victim's parents. Mainly because she never tried to escape, and she failed to save Walter's last victim even though she was in a position to do so.

In addition to the main characters, Lippman introduces us to Barbara, the friend on the outside who is determined to save Walter from death row. Let me tell you, Barbara is a piece of work. Well-to-do but rude as hell and full of herself. I did not like her at all and although she too, was a victim of violence, I felt nothing for her but contempt. The inclusion of such a character is interesting because it just goes to show you that there are all kinds of people out there and just knowing this puts you in a vulnerable position.

This was my first experience with Lippman's writing and although I felt that the characters were emotionally reserved in places, I can see myself picking up another Lippman book in the future. Also, it should be noted that the violence depicted in this novel is not written with great detail. You are given just enough to know what happened, the rest is left up to your imagination.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Kind of Recommends

A death row serial killer reaching out to his one living victim after 20 years is kind of a stretch; especially since the victim agrees to see him. She even talks to him frequently on the phone! He sees her as a way to stop his execution. The main character, Elisabeth/Eliza, has a husband to die for but he's not believeable either -- nobody's that good. Setting all that aside, it's a good read but certainly has its flaws. The killer is very well done.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Bridget's Review

I loved this book! Laura is one of my favorite authors and this book was amazing! It's unlike any other book I have ever read. If you only read one book this year, make it I'd Know You Anywhere.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Page Turner

Engrossing crime novel that reads "for real". Couldn't put it down. Oh, and a perfect ending!

Really good story!!

I really enjoyed this book.

Gets better and better as it goes along

I didn't like Eliza that much to begin with, but I liked the book. It had a good feel for some of the upwardly-mobile yuppie mommies in the D.C. area, and it had interesting reflections on sibling relationships (both between Eliza's own children, and between Eliza and her sister. ) And I liked the ending. Eliza refused in the end to be manipulated by that old male trick of, "you didn't give me what I wanted, so you're undesirable." I liked Eliza a lot better after the end of the book.

What would you say 20 years later to the man who kidnapped you?

This is my first novel by Laura Lippman. I was intrigued by the subject matter/plot, so I picked it up, not knowing that Ms. Lippman has a string of previous novels. A death row inmate contacts his only surviving victim who holds a secret of her own about their time together? I felt very intrigued.

Going into the novel, though, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. I was hoping it would jump right into the "real" plot. It started out slow and monotonous, giving us seemingly unimportant and mundane details about the now-adult victim's homelife with her two kids. They moved back to the states from London, blah, blah, blah. Then, Eliza receives the first letter from Walter, the man who kidnapped her and held her hostage for a month when she was a teenager. That's when the story started to really get interesting. I loved the "connection" between Eliza and Walter. Every chapter that had a current exchange between them, or a flashback to Walter's exploits as a young man either with or without Eliza, had me hooked. I wanted to know what he had done, and I wanted to know why. Eliza's background, I could care less about. It was Walter's past, the so-called serial killer's, that was so fascinating.

The point of view of the novel altered with every chapter. It was a bit confusing at times at the start of the chapter, until I realized whose point of view it was that I was reading. Sometimes, we're given the point of view of Walter, or Eliza, or Barbara (the mysterious woman who is acting as Walter's liaison with the outside world), or Trudy (the mother of one of Walter's last victim). Do we care about Barbara's point of view? Or Trudy's? No, not really. It's Walter's and Eliza's that really give us the "meat" of the story and kept me reading on.

When all secrets and truths come out in the end during Eliza's and Walter's final meeting face-to-face with only jail cell bars between them, I felt a little disappointed. The mystery was interesting and well-written, but I guess I wanted more. Maybe I even expected more. There was a lot leading up to this moment and when it finally happened, it felt rushed. The author didn't even give us all the details I was hoping for about Walter and his past. Lippman felt the need to go on and on about Eliza's children's antics and school situations, but didn't feel the need to give readers details about her main character? That, to me, felt like a poor decision.

I do recommend I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE and I think the author writes very well, but I do think it could have been better.

One of my favorite lines:
"No one had to be stupid. Stupid was a choice." Ahh...so true.

boring and uneventful

perhaps the book was intended to show the relationship between captor and prisoner, and the repercussions that follow. I felt the book went nowhere, a lot of material was repetitive, characters were underdeveloped.

Great read

Thoughtful and engaging...takes you deep inside a suspenseful story of dominance, strength, and the determination of the human spirit

Really enjoyed it!

This book was definitely a page turner. My attention was grabbed from the begining and the plot was fast moving. I would recommend it!

Don't Bother

You can only read so many books in your life and there are so many wonderful books out there; my advice is to skip this one. The plot is implausible and the characters are underdeveloped. Half-way through, I wanted to put the book in the trash. The author doesn't make the characters or the dialogue believable so I just didn't care to find out what happened to them. No one in the main character's life react to her drama in a normal way. Her husband dispassionately discusses notes she recieves from a serial killer on death row who had kidnapped her as a child. He doesn't get excited or angry; he apparently has no emotional response at all. The other characters are also stilted caricatures. Her sister is a narcissitic know-it-all who's only purpose in life is to make sure she's the center of attention. Her daughter is acting out in a prolonged episode of teen-aged angst; scornful and isolated. It seems the author needs to do more research. She incorrectly carries on about how the American phrase "waiting for the other shoe to drop" means the same as the English phrase "waiting for the penny to drop". "Waiting for the other shoe to drop" means the anticipation of something to happen after something else has already taken place. "Waiting for the penny to drop" means waiting for someone to "get it" be it the joke or point of the story, like you put the coin in the machine and all the lights come on. Why she would pointedly make this comparison only to get it wrong is puzzling. I guess I'm aggravated that garbage like this costs the same as really fine, transformational writing. In any case, don't waste your money or more importantly, your time on this...you will be disappointed.

Highly Recommended!

I really loved this book. It kept my attention to the very last page! Pick it up and you won't be disappointed!

awesome drama

love this book. kept me at the edge of my bed. love it. highly recommended.

Sure to please :)

This was a good read! A little eerie, and gets your heart to jumping in spots. Ending is predictible, but a good read nonetheless.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Don't waste your time

This book was very hard for me to get through. I found it extremely boring and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't make myself care about any of the characters. I ended up forcing myself to finish it, which is too bad because this material could have made for a really good read. Very disappointing.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

loved the sample!

love the option to sample. this is one of two samples and loved both

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.