‘The Power of Three’ by Laura Lippman

Published by Orion,
2 April 2020.
ISBN: 978-1-40919736-2 (PB)

On an ordinary morning at Glendale High, shots are heard coming from a locked bathroom in the north wing.  It takes the police some time to get to the only conscious girl Josie to open the door, she at first insists that she cannot move but later it appears that her leg wound is mainly superficial. The other two girls are not so lucky, Kat is dead and Perri, who was apparently the shooter is unconscious from a bullet that has ripped through her jaw. Detective Lenhardt uncovers evidence at the scene that suggests that there could have been a fourth person, but that does not tally with the story Josie is telling.

Kat, Perri and Josie have been best friends - virtually inseparable for the last five years. The book takes us back to before the girls first knew each other and narrates their home lives and how their friendship came about. Illustrated by incidents throughout their childhood the characters of each of the girls is slowly and skilfully revealed. The focus of the investigation is more about the complexity of the relationship of these three girls than the actual shooting.

School teacher Alexa is convinced that Eve Mulie has information and is determined to provide the opportunity for Eve to confide in her. Narrated from several points of view the reader is able to sift through the verbal evidence to uncover just why and what did happen between these three girls.

The setting is a suburb of Baltimore, which has been developed mainly by Kat’s father. But there are still some outlying farms the children of which are looked down upon. In all it is quite a fascinating insight into the lives of three teenagers from different backgrounds brought up with different values, that eventually results in tragedy. 
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full-time and published seven books about "accidental PI" Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has been awarded the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor's Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco.