Laura Lippman’s “To the Power of Three” is advertised on the cover as a “novel of suspense”. Indeed. We know who pulled the trigger from the very beginning, but we do not know why and exactly how. Finding the answer to these questions provides sustained suspense throughout the book. However, to me, the suspense aspect is not the main reason that the novel is worth reading. I find the psychological and sociological observations of status structures in school quite interesting.We follow the friendship of three girls from Baltimore suburbs, Kat, Perri, and Josie, from the third grade to just before the high-school graduation when the killing happens, and when the current-time, police procedural plot begins. The past events are shown in long narrative flashbacks, in which Ms. Lippman develops psychological portraits of the girls and depicts the dynamics of social power hierarchies among female students.The observations how girls construct their identities while growing up and trying to fit into the existing social status structures and to become “someone who belongs” are insightful and well presented. Kat, Perri, and Josie do not follow the school “divas” (the group at the top of the female hierarchy of students). They do not join the group of “skeezer girls”, who remain sort of outside the school mainstream. The three girls carve their own niche using their “power of three”. It is also fascinating to observe how the social structures and the mechanisms of “belonging to a group” change with age.Ms. Lippman provides a refreshingly scathing description of the funeral ceremony that is perceived by the students as a fabulously exciting extracurricular event; most of them are hard at work trying to replicate the grieving behaviors seen on TV. We also learn the immense value of having connections to current traumatic events. Having an uncle whose friend’s brother-in-law has died on September 11 automatically elevates one’s social status at school. Despite these sharp observations, the author still shows lots of compassion for most characters.Unfortunately, various literary clichés are present in the novel, and the portrayal of the cops is quite formulaic. Yet, the denouement is not disappointing if a little implausible, and the author delivers on the promise building since the beginning of this solid, readable book.Three and a half stars.
4 STARS"Baltimore police receive and urgent call out to Glendale High after gunshots are heard coming from a locked girls' toilet. It appears that three girls are in there but only one, Joise, is conscious. She assures the police through the locked door that she's not the shooter. She also insists that she cannot manage to unlock the door from the inside because of the injury she has suffered to her leg. After an janitor is summoned, the police cautiously enter the bathroom. They find three victims - Joise, who leg wound seems relatively superficial; Perri, who is unconcious from a bullet wound that has ripped through her jaw; and Katrina, who is dead, shot in the chest. The investigating team is led by Detective Harold Lenhardt - himself the father of adolescent girl. He soon develops information that is at odds with the story Josie is telling. While it seems likely that Perri brough the gun to school, the rest of Josie's story is not supported by physical evidence. What's more, other clues at the scene suggest there was a fourth girl who witnessed the entire episode from behind a locked stall. Where is she now? How did she get out? Some years before the fatal shooting in the locked room, growing up. As ever, she ratches up the suspense as she unfolds her story with grace, sympathy and acute intelligence." (From Amazon)This was my first Laura Lippman novel and I really enjoyed the suspense and overall story.
What do You think about To The Power Of Three (2006)?
I am not usually hooked by mysteries, but this one had such an interesting premise -- an inexplicable shooting involving three girls, best friends, at a suburban highschool-- that I read on. But in the end I was disappointed. The solution seemed contrived, unrelated to the personalities of the characters -- a typical mystery writer's attempt to dig up the *least* likely explanation for an event (so the reader will not be able to guess at it). Lippman threw away a good opportunity here to explore
—Vicky
I've come upon yet another book set in my hometown of Baltimore, MD! This one mentions lots of places I know very well, so it makes the story more immediate.Just finished the book...there are lots of things I love about Laura Lippman's writing, and I will definitely read more of her books, but as I have seen in many of the reviews, this is not her best work. The story started out like gangbusters, and I was very intrigued for about the first 1/3rd of the book, but then the story started to meander and my interest level decreased significantly. As the reader tries to make sense of a shooting of three high-school girls in one of the school bathrooms, clues are released a bit at a time and momentum builds, but then the whole thing starts to fall flat. The ending is a surprise, but it's anti-climactic and ultimately dissatisfying. The book is billed as a mystery, but I did not see enough of the necessary elements for it to fit in that category.Still want to say "Hooray" for Baltimore's own Laura Lippman, however, ad that I plan to give some of her other books a try.
—Bev
This book starts with a shooting in the girls' bathroom of a high school before school has officially opened for the day. When the police arrive they find one girl dead, another critically injured, and a third shot in the foot. The three girls had been close friends since elementary school through high school until their senior year. Then something happened to break up the threesome. Laura Lippman does a good job of stringing the reader along with just enough information to make you want to keep reading to find out what had happened to break up the three friends and end up with one taking a gun to school that is shot in the bathroom before school. The reader gets an answer to both of these questions at the very end of the book, but isn't that the point of a suspenseful mystery - to make you want to keep reading to find out what happened?
—Lynne
