Amber Glass has spent her entire adult life putting as much distance as possible between her and her hometown of Baltimore, where she fears she will forever be known as 'Prom Mom'--the girl who allegedly killed her baby on the night of the prom after her date, Joe Simpson, abandoned her to pursue the girl he really liked. But when circumstances bring Amber back to the city, she realizes she can have a second chance—as long as she stays away from Joe, now a successful commercial real estate developer who is now married. Amber and Joe can't seem to stay away from each other and then they cross the line. And then Joe asks Amber to help him do the unthinkable.
Starts deceptively simply ... Isn’t in a hurry to pull the pin on that question, delighting instead in the slow reveal of characters who aren’t exactly what they seem ... The surprises, delivered close to Prom Mom’s final pages, are the kind that might compel you to reread the whole story again, just to find out how Lippman layered this quadrangulate tale with clues and misdirection about Joe and the women who enable him, and how she managed to make such a classic form feel so of the moment. That formidable skill makes Prom Mom one of Lippman’s most seductively mesmerizing novels, not just an homage to Cain but a powerful successor.
The timeline of Prom Mom toggles between the present and past as seen through different points of view. Readers’ sympathies shift from one character to another, as Ms. Lippman parcels out crucial information to induce gasps of surprise ... Ms. Lippman, long recognized as a master of plot and exposition, has been serving up psychologically rich slices of karma for years. Even her most demanding fans will be tempted to judge Prom Mom one of her best books yet.
This is no romance novel. As the pandemic descends and problems mount, the story picks up pace and intensity, moving into the realm of a thriller as all three become implicated in a crime caper: an insurance scam that evolves into a murder-for-hire scheme ... Lippman builds the stories of her main characters. None are especially deep — or sympathetic ... Leaves readers so distanced from her soulless characters that they may not care enough to root for any of them.
