Laura Lippman used to write really good police procedurals set in Baltimore. I love Baltimore and always enjoyed the novels because they brought back pleasant memories of this great city. Plus, they were well-written and fun to read.
Then, for some bizarre reason, Lippman decided to stop writing in this genre and switched to publishing novels about boring rich people. Wilde Lake is her most recent novel, and its characters take the prize in dreary rich-people assholery. The protagonist is a woman who spends the entire novel moaning about the intense insecurity she feels because of being thin and having big boobs. Yes, what a horrible tragedy for a woman to have this body type. My compassion is profound. All of the problems the novel’s characters experience are of this kind. Their black Mammy-type servant is not accommodating enough. The children they purchased require a bit of attention sometimes. A colleague has longer legs. Are there that many readers who can identify with this kind of existence or feel much interest towards it? If so, I’m not one of them.
This novel is even worse than After I’m Gone, Lippman’s preceding foray into the boring rich people genre. I so wish she’d just stop writing about these useless, superficial creatures and their petty dramas and go back to writing about normal people and their normal, interesting lives.
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