Laura Lippman's sharp and timely thriller 'Dream Girl' sticks the landing

All hail the suspense novel that sticks the landing! 

Laura Lippman, author of "Lady in the Lake" and the popular Tess Monaghan series, returns with a standalone psychological thriller, "Dream Girl" (William Morrow, 320 pp., 3.5 stars), that manages an all-too-rare feat for the genre: a satisfying conclusion. 

Gerry Anderson is an uber successful novelist who has racked up big sales and multiple marriages (and their subsequent divorces) over the course of his career. He also has a past full of indiscretions with women and not a few people he’s hurt or betrayed. When Gerry moves to Baltimore to nurse his mother through her final illness, he has a terrible accident in his swanky condo and is bed-ridden for weeks. Juggling multiple caregivers, a trayful of pain meds and a long swath of boredom, Gerry is unsettled when he begins to receive anonymous calls from someone who claims to be the real inspiration for his bestseller," Dream Girl."

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