You Have GOT To Read It, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 When I first heard about this book and film, and its basic plot, I wondered if Alex Marwood's "The Wicked Girls" was influenced by it.  Lippman wrote the book in 2003, or 2004, and Wicker's novel came along, eight years later.  So, anything is possible, though, considering its British setting, I feel Wicker's book was influenced more by the James Bulger case, whose twenty third anniversary--oh, my God!!!!!!!!!--is coming up, next month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                  What happens in Lippman's story is this.

                                   Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller, both aged 11 ,and forced into a summer friendship by Alice's mother, attend another girl's birthday party. This is the popular group, whom Alice so much wants to be a part of, but her chances are ruined, when, in a dispute, Ronnie slaps the birthday girl's mother, across the face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                     I say, "Good for you, Ronnie!" The bitch deserved it!!!!!!!!!!!  I wish I could tell you the adults I wanted to slap back then, and the contemporaries I want to slap now!!!!!!!!!

                                     The girls are banished from the party. Wandering home, they pass a Victorian style house, where a baby carriage is sitting, alone on a porch.  The girls look, and there is a baby inside. Thinking the child abandoned, they--Ronnie? Alice?--take the baby, confining her to a house in the woods. But something happens. Three days later, a rookie cop finds the child dead--who just happens to be the granddaughter of the town's prominent Black judge.

                                   Alice and Ronnie are in hot water, convicted, and sent to Juvie for seven years. Now, eighteen, they are released to their families, still living in town, advised not to see each other.
Ronnie gets a job in a local bagel shop, while Alice walks about town. But why????????/

                                     And then another child goes missing, after only two weeks...............

                                      What is great about this novel is that surrounding the mystery are woven all kinds of social issues--class distinctions in small town America, mother and daughter dynamics, the consequences thereof, and the importance of who to believe or not,when one is telling the truth. And the damage that can be done, when secrets are kept.  Not to mention bullying.

                                         I literally devoured the book. My beloved was in another room, while I read, and, at one point, I cried out, with exclamation, "Oh, my God!!!!!!!!!"  I can't tell you why, but it was enough to rouse him into the room, to see what was up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                           Laura Lippman was a name I had seen in book stores for years. The issue of child sociopathy is what drew me to this book.  But her writing is strong, and could draw me to others!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                             You will never forget Ronnie, and, especially, Alice!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                               Sometime, BFF's are not a good thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!