I finished WHAT THE DEAD KNOW by Laura Lippman recently, and, while the pacing seemed a bit slow and I had minor trouble with the shifting viewpoints (it just didn't seem as 'seamless' as I thought it should have been), I loved the story and the plotting. I had an idea about the ending before getting to it, but it was still very satisfying in the end.

It (and many of Lippman's books) made me despair a bit about my own writing ambitions (dormant as they are currently) because I was struck by the indisputable fact that I could never write that well, or interestingly (is that a proper variation of 'interesting'?) as Lippman does.

Everyone takes different things from a story, and some might not see the particular passage that brought it home for me as particularly brilliant. Perhaps it isn't. But...

Near the end, Lippman tells a story of a stuffed animal of some sort, how it gets dragged around until it is completely threadbare, all the "fur" off of it. Then she uses this to illustrate something about a character in the story. I should have written this sooner to finishing the book because since reading that one I've read Coben's latest (THE WOODS) and am about halfway through Denise Swanson's MURDER OF A BOTOXED BLONDE, and the scene isn't that fresh in my mind as to exactly what was being described.

But I remember as I read it, thinking, where in the heck did she come up with that story as an analogy? I would have never thought of it. Now if it is something that actually sort of happened, I feel better. But if she created it out of nothing, well, why should I even try?

I'm half joking here - but only half, because I don't think I can ever be as good of a writer as Lippman (and many others) and I don't think I can ever use my imagination as effectively as they do either.

Congratulations to Laura Lippman for another terrific book. (I'm all caught up, I've read 'em all now!)