Shari Lapena Is NOT Shari Lewis--And That Is A Good Thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                             As one who is old enough  to have grown up with  Shari Lewis--not to mention  Hush Puppy, and my personal favorite--Lamb  Chop--I am certainly not out  to disparage her.  For those not old enough, Shari Lewis was a famous children's puppeteer.   My  point is,  had Shari Lapena tried to  emulate her,  it would have been a very dark vision  of Lamb Chop, whom, I maintain, is America's First Feminist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                               I can  never forget this  brilliant exchange  between them:

                                              " Lamb Chop:  What do you think I am, an Arnold  Benedict?

                                               Shari:  That's Benedict Arnold!

                                               Lamb Chop:  Well, he  was even  worse!"

                                               See?  Lamb  Chop was  one smart cookie, and she taught me  history.  I had never  heard of Benedict Arnold before,  but immediately went  to find out who he was.

                                                Lamb Chop had her own  schtick,  and so does Shari Lapena.  As one  reviewer  dubbed,  it  is "suburban paranoia," and there is an abundance of that in "Someone We Know."

                                                Now,  I know,  I know--never do two thrillers back to back.  Ordinarily, I would not, nor would I advise my readers to do so.  But, remember, girls,  I had  just come  out  of the hospital, following my heart ablation procedure, so I needed to escape.  So I read Ware and Lapena back to back.

                                                "Someone  We Know" could be considered a darker take on Rod Serling's classic "Twilight Zone" episode "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."  A young  married couple, Michael and Amanda Pierce, move to  a quiet suburban street in  Aylesworth,  New York, which is upstate.  Picture Bedford in "Fatal Attraction," and you have the idea.  The Pierces may seem like a nice couple, but  they are,  to this story,  what the Kellersons were to the 1949 film, "The Window."  Amanda is  quite the town tramp,  and when  she goes missing, everyone  sympathizes with Michael, whom  the neighbors feel has been dumped by  his wife.  That is, until a car is  unearthed from a nearby lake,  with Amanda's body  in it!  Shades of  Susan Smith!  And blunt force trauma.  Now,  not only Michael, but every  man in the book  is suspect, as each seems to have had a go at Amanda.

                                                    Meanwhile, someone is  breaking into neighbors' houses; not to steal anything, just to look around, and for the  thrill of not getting caught.   I thought of Bobby's  monologue in "A Chorus Line."

                                                     With all that is going  on  within  this neighborhood,  property  values are sure to drop!  Darlings, who would want to move  here?  The identity  of the housebreaker surprised me,  but not  that of the killer.  But then there is always the Lapena twist....and  it is a stunner.

                                                       Shari Lapena may be  less literary than Ruth Ware, but hers  was the better book.  Rumors  have  been  abounding  about  a sequel to this one,  and I could see it.  I would love  to see how LaPena  plays with this.  And,  if dramatized, how it would be cast.

                                                        So  now,  darlings,  I have read all of Shari Lapena's books. All I can see is--keep writing, Shari, I want more!

                                                         I bet even  Lamb Chop is reading these books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!