The Most Dangerous Thing / Laura Lippman / 344 p.

Once the best of friends until a terrible secret tore them apart, a group of friends are suddenly brought back together under tragic circumstances and wonder if their long-ago lie is the reason for their troubles today and if someone is out to destroy them.

Sigh, where to begin...  There is a mystery in this novel (ie. "the terrible secret"), but the book is more of a character study of the five friends and their parents.  The novel is compelling and the characters are believable and complex, and following their life stories and changes was interesting and made me reflect on my own life's turning points. 

HOWEVER, there was not one single decent character out of the entire lot!!  I kept thinking, "what a bunch of pretentious, whiny, self absorbed yuppies" !!  Everybody has defining moments or tragedies happen in their lives, and yes some move on a deal with it better than others.  It seemed to me that these characters spend the rest of the miserable lives blaming all their disappointments and failures on this one event.  I was pretty sick of this group by the time the book was over. 

Final verdict: The author's style is literary, plot line is compelling; but I would rather reread "Where the Heart is" by Billie Letts if I want to read a story with well developed characters.  In Letts' story the characters have their faults, but I felt they were good, wonderful people inside.  Not the dead, beaten down, selfish characters in "The most dangerous thing".