Whenever a new Laura Lippman comes out there is reason to celebrate! --Louise Penny
Highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman returns with an irresistible mystery featuring Muriel Blossom, a former private investigator and middle-aged widow whose vacation on a Parisian river cruise turns into a deadly international mystery...that only she can solve.
Mrs. Blossom has a knack for blending into the background, which was an asset during her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan. But when she finds a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot, everything changes. She is determined to see the world that she sometimes feels is passing her by.
When Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who's sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed.
She also didn't expect Allan to be found, dead, twenty-four hours later in Paris, a city he wasn't supposed to be in.
Now Mrs. Blossom doesn't know who to trust on board the ship, especially when a mystifying man, Danny, keeps popping up around every corner, always present when things go awry. He is convinced that Allan was transporting a stolen piece of art, and Mrs. Blossom knows more than she lets on, regarding both the artifact and Allan's death.
Mrs. Blossom's questions only increase as the cruise sails down the Seine. Why does it feel like she is being followed? Who was Allan, and why was he killed? Most alarmingly, why do these mysterious men keep flirting with her?
Whenever a new Laura Lippman comes out there is reason to celebrate! --Louise Penny
Highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman returns with an irresistible mystery featuring Muriel Blossom, a former private investigator and middle-aged widow whose vacation on a Parisian river cruise turns into a deadly international mystery...that only she can solve.
Mrs. Blossom has a knack for blending into the background, which was an asset during her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan. But when she finds a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot, everything changes. She is determined to see the world that she sometimes feels is passing her by.
When Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who's sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed.
She also didn't expect Allan to be found, dead, twenty-four hours later in Paris, a city he wasn't supposed to be in.
Now Mrs. Blossom doesn't know who to trust on board the ship, especially when a mystifying man, Danny, keeps popping up around every corner, always present when things go awry. He is convinced that Allan was transporting a stolen piece of art, and Mrs. Blossom knows more than she lets on, regarding both the artifact and Allan's death.
Mrs. Blossom's questions only increase as the cruise sails down the Seine. Why does it feel like she is being followed? Who was Allan, and why was he killed? Most alarmingly, why do these mysterious men keep flirting with her?
SOON TO BE A SERIES FROM APPLE TV!
A New York Times Bestseller
The revered New York Times bestselling author returns with a novel set in 1960s Baltimore that combines modern psychological insights with elements of classic noir, about a middle-aged housewife turned aspiring reporter who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman.
In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know--everyone, that is, except Madeline Maddie Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life.
Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl--assistance that leads to a job at the city's afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: Cleo Sherwood, a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.
If Cleo were white, every reporter in Baltimore would be clamoring to tell her story. Instead, her mysterious death receives only cursory mention in the daily newspapers, and no one cares when Maddie starts poking around in a young Black woman's life--except for Cleo's ghost, who is determined to keep her secrets and her dignity. Cleo scolds the ambitious Maddie: You're interested in my death, not my life. They're not the same thing.
Maddie's investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life--a jewelry store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people--including Ferdie, the man who shares her bed, a police officer who is risking far more than Maddie can understand.
The New York Times bestselling author returns to the compelling terrain of Every Secret Thing and To the Power of Three with this indelible story of crime and vengeance in which the past becomes all-too-present.
When he's called to the scene of an accident detective Kevin Infante is drawn into a shocking and puzzling crime that still haunts the Baltimore P.D. Twenty years ago, two little girls were kidnapped from a shopping mall, igniting fear and anger throughout the city.
Now, a clearly disoriented woman involved in the accident claims to be one of the missing girls. But instead of closing the case, her appearance marks the beginning of a nightmare that will once again rock Baltimore and threaten everyone it touches. The woman claims one of Baltimore's beloved cops snatched her and her sister. Is it the truth-or the ravings of a damaged mind? There isn't a shred of evidence to support her story: The cop is dead and her parents can't verify the woman is even their daughter, for both girls were adopted and do not share their DNA. And who is the body in the unmarked grave the girl reveals?
With the department's reputation, a dead man's honor, and his own badge on the line, Infante must go back to a past he barely knows to find answers--and maybe even justice--once and for all.
Discover the first novel in New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman's outstanding Tess Monaghan series! When a former Baltimore reporter must solve the murder of a notorious attorney, she discovers Charm City is rife with dark, sordid, and dangerous secrets.
In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety--and his taste for illicit midday trysts--make the case front-page news in every local paper except the Star, which crashed and burned before Abramowitz did.
A former Star reporter who knows every inch of this town--from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill--now-unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan also knows the guy the cops like for the killing: cuckolded fiancé Darryl Rock Paxton. The time is ripe for a career move, so when rowing buddy Rock wants to hire her to do some unorthodox snooping to help clear his name, Tess agrees.
But there are lethal secrets hiding in the Charm City shadows. And Tess's own name could end up on that ever-expanding list of Baltimore dead.
Every time Laura Lippman comes out with a new book, I get chills because I know I am back in the hands of the master. She is simply a brilliant novelist, an unflinching chronicler of life in America right now, and Sunburn is her dark, gleaming noir gem. Read it. -Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl
New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman returns with a superb novel of psychological suspense about a pair of lovers with the best intentions and the worst luck: two people locked in a passionate yet uncompromising game of cat and mouse. But instead of rules, this game has dark secrets, forbidden desires, inevitable betrayals--and cold-blooded murder.
One is playing a long game. But which one?
They meet at a local tavern in the small town of Belleville, Delaware. Polly is set on heading west. Adam says he's also passing through. Yet she stays and he stays--drawn to this mysterious redhead whose quiet stillness both unnerves and excites him. Over the course of a punishing summer, Polly and Adam abandon themselves to a steamy, inexorable affair. Still, each holds something back from the other--dangerous, even lethal, secrets.
Then someone dies. Was it an accident, or part of a plan? By now, Adam and Polly are so ensnared in each other's lives and lies that neither one knows how to get away--or even if they want to. Is their love strong enough to withstand the truth, or will it ultimately destroy them?
Something--or someone--has to give.
Which one will it be?
Inspired by James M. Cain's masterpieces The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce, Sunburn is a tantalizing modern noir from the incomparable Laura Lippman.
Well-plotted, well-written, clear-eyed. I never saw the end coming. There's a hell of a one-two punch waiting for you. --Stephen King
New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman's latest mesmerizing thriller tells the story of Amber Glass, desperately trying to escape her tabloid past but compulsively drawn back into a game of cat-and-mouse with the prom date who destroyed everything she was reaching for.
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 accused of killing her own 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 real estate developer, married to a plastic surgeon, Meredith, to whom he is devoted.
The problem is, Amber can't stay away from Joe. And Joe finds that it's increasingly hard for him to ignore Amber. Against the surreal backdrop of 2020 and early 2021, the two are slowly drawn to each other and eventually cross the line they've been trying not to cross.
And then Joe asks Amber to help him do the unthinkable . . . and she must decide if she is willing to let their toxic and dangerous past repeat itself in this fresh, transgressive take on classic noir.
In New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman's electrifying thriller, PI Tess Monaghan discovers she might've gotten herself into a dangerous situation for which there's no way out. . . .
PI Tess Monaghan is ecstatic to hear the news that business tycoon Gerard Wink Wynkowski wants to bring pro-basketball back to Baltimore. But when Wink's checkered past--which runs the gamut from domestic abuse and compulsive gambling to armed robberies and even manslaughter--makes the front page of the Baltimore Beacon-Light, aka the Blight his project is jeopardized. No one is more surprised at the expos than the editors of the paper who were certain they killed the piece. Hoping to uncover who hacked into their computers, the newspaper hires Tess.
But soon after the story on Wink runs, he's found asphyxiated in his garage with his car's engine running. Suicide appears to be the cause of his death--and everyone is blaming the Blight for airing his dirty laundry and sending him into the downward spiral that led to his demise. But the more Tess uncovers about Wink, the more she's convinced that someone with an axe to grind wanted him dead and was willing to go as far as murdering him.
And if this all weren't enough to keep her plate full, Tess must also find the lowlifes who roughed up her uncle--the same men who are intent on getting back a prized Greyhound dog which she's currently looking after while her uncle recuperates. Now as Tess's PI skills are put to the ultimate test, she must stay one step ahead of a diabolical
Laura Lippman, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing, I'd Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know, returns with an addictive story that explores how one man's disappearance echoes through the lives of the wife, mistress, and daughters he left behind.
When Felix Brewer meets Bernadette Bambi Gottschalk at a Valentine's Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative--if not all legal--businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes.
Though Bambi has no idea where her husband--or his money--might be, she suspects one woman does: his mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day that Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her old lover--until her remains are eventually found.
Now, twenty-six years after Julie went missing, Roberto Sandy Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web stretching over three decades that connects five intriguing women. And at the center is the missing man Felix Brewer.
Somewhere between the secrets and lies connecting past and present, Sandy will find the truth. And when he does, no one will ever be the same.
New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman plunges Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan into a twisted and disturbing case.
Tess Monaghan has encountered almost every possible criminal motive throughout her career: greed, revenge, jealousy, rage. But there are crimes that defy all attempts at understanding, where a search for motive seems pointless.
Melisandre Harris Dawes committed such a crime. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, she fled the country, leaving her two daughters with their father. Twelve years later, she's back in Baltimore, and Tess is asked to provide security detail while Melisandre films a documentary about her attempts to reconcile with her now teenaged children.
Tess, juggling work with caring for her demanding toddler, is uneasy about the case. Still, Melisandre's lawyer is family. And there is something about the woman herself--confident, beautiful, shrewdly intelligent--that draws Tess in. Is she a master manipulator or someone who was driven to temporary madness? Cold and calculating, or a mother concerned for her daughters' well being? Someone is leaving Melisandre enigmatic, threatening notes. Soon Tess, insecure about her parenting abilities and receiving cryptic messages of her own, isn't sure whether she should be protecting Melisandre from harm--or protecting everyone else from Melisandre.
When Melisandre becomes the prime suspect in a murder, Tess must uncover the truth. Doing so will mean confronting her deepest beliefs about what separates good parents from bad, madness from sanity, and what lengths even the most rational person will go to, to protect what they cherish most.
New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman showcases why she is one of today's top crime writers in this acclaimed collection of suspenseful stories featuring fierce women--including one never-before-published novella.
A first-rate collection, an obvious must for the legions of Lippman fans, but also great reading for anyone who savors short crime fiction. -- Booklist (starred review)
The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories.
In the never-before-published Just One More, a married couple--longing for that old romantic spark--creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences.
Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in Seasonal Work, while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of The Everyday Housewife is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets.
In Slow Burner, a husband's secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife.
A father's hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes.
Plus seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong--irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman's riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.
Well-plotted, well-written, clear-eyed. I never saw the end coming. There's a hell of a one-two punch waiting for you. --Stephen King
New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman tells the story of Amber Glass, desperately trying to get away from her tabloid past but compulsively drawn back to the city of her youth and the prom date who destroyed everything she was reaching for.
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, married to a plastic surgeon, Meredith, to whom he is devoted.
The problem is, Amber can't stay away from Joe. And Joe finds that it's increasingly hard for him to ignore Amber, if only because she remembers the boy he was and the man he said he was going to be. Against the surreal backdrop of 2020 and early 2021, the two are slowly drawn to each other and eventually cross the line they've been trying not to cross.
And then Joe asks Amber to help him do the unthinkable . . . and she must decide if she is willing to let their toxic and dangerous past repeat itself.
One of the best novelists around, period.
--Washington Post
Lippman has enriched literature as a whole.
--Chicago Sun-Times
One of the most acclaimed novelists in America today, Laura Lippman has greatly expanded the boundaries of mystery fiction and psychological suspense with her Tess Monaghan p.i. series and her New York Times bestselling standalone novels (What the Dead Know, Life Sentences, I'd Know You Anywhere, etc.). With The Most Dangerous Thing, the multiple award winning author--recipient of the Anthony, Edgar(R), Shamus, and Agatha Awards, to name but a few--once again demonstrates how storytelling is done to perfection. Set once again in the well-wrought environs of Lippman's beloved Baltimore, it is the shadowy tale of a group of onetime friends forced to confront a dark past they've each tried to bury following the death of one of their number. Rich in the compassion and insight into flawed human nature that has become a Lippman trademark while telling an absolutely gripping story, The Most Dangerous Thing will not be confined by genre restrictions, reaching out instead to captive a wide, diverse audience, from Harlan Coben and Kate Atkinson fans to readers of Jodi Picoult and Kathryn Stockett.
A Best Novel nominee for the 2017 Anthony Award!
An African-American man accused of rape by a humiliated girl. A vengeful father. A courageous attorney. A worshipful daughter. Think you know this story? Think again.
Laura Lippman, the extravagantly gifted (Chicago Tribune) New York Times bestselling author, delivers one of her best novels (Washington Post)--a modern twist on To Kill a Mockingbird. Scott Turow writes in the New York Times, Wilde Lake is a real success.
Luisa Lu Brant is the newly elected state's attorney representing suburban Maryland--including the famous planned community of Columbia, created to be a utopia of racial and economic equality. Prosecuting a controversial case involving a disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death, the fiercely ambitious Lu is determined to avoid the traps that have destroyed other competitive, successful women. She's going to play it smart to win this case--and win big--cementing her political future.
But her intensive preparation for trial unexpectedly dredges up painful recollections of another crime--the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man's life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Justice was done. Or was it? Did the events of 1980 happen as she remembers them? She was only a child then. What details didn't she know?
As she plunges deeper into the past, Lu is forced to face a troubling reality. The legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. But what happens when she realizes that, for the first time, she doesn't want to know the whole truth?
Based on New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman's acclaimed, multi-award-nominated short story Scratch a Woman, And When She Was Good is the powerfully gripping, intensely emotional story of a suburban madam, a convicted murderer whose sentence is about to be overturned, and the child they will both do anything to keep.
In the comfortable suburb where Heloise Lewis lives, she's just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play. In the state capitol, she's the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record.
But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she's the woman of your dreams--if you can afford her hourly fee.
But now, after a decade, her secret life is under siege. Her once oblivious accountant is asking loaded questions. Her longtime protector is hinting at new dangers. Her employees can't be trusted. One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, a suicide. Or is it? And then she learns that her son's father, a killer and former pimp, might be released from prison. With no formal education, no real family, and no friends, Heloise has to remake her life--again. Disappearing will be the easy part. The trick will be living long enough to start a new life.
Booklist Editors' Choice!
Called One of the Best Mystery Books by NPR, Washington Post, Crime Reads, Library Journal, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and Dublin City Library!
With this tip of the hat to Stephen King's Misery, Dream Girl is funny and suspenseful, with a dread-worthy final twist. --People
My dream novel. I devoured this in three days. The sharpest, clearest-eyed take on our #MeToo reckoning yet. Plus: enthralling. --Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me and The Fever
Following up on her acclaimed and wildly successful New York Times bestseller Lady in the Lake, Laura Lippman returns with a dark, complex tale of psychological suspense with echoes of Misery involving a novelist, incapacitated by injury, who is plagued by mysterious phone calls.
Aubrey, the title character of Gerry Andersen's most successful novel, Dream Girl, is so captivating that Gerry's readers insist she's real. Gerry knows she exists only in his imagination. So how can Aubrey be calling Gerry, bed-bound since a freak fall? A virtual prisoner in his penthouse, Gerry is dependent on two women he barely knows: his incurious young assistant, and a dull, slow-witted night nurse.
Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry's life?
And why does no one believe that the call even happened?
Isolated from the world, drowsy from medication, Gerry slips between reality and dreamlike memories: his faithless father, his devoted mother; the women who loved him, the women he loved.
Now here is Aubrey, threatening to visit him, suggesting that Gerry owes her something. Is the threat real or a sign of dementia? Which scenario would he prefer? Gerry has never been so alone, so confused - and so terrified.
And then he wakes up to another nightmare--a woman's dead body next to his bed--and the terrifying uncertainty of whether he is responsible.
New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman, a journalist for many years, collects here her recent essays exploring motherhood as an older mom, her life as a reader, her relationships with her parents, friendship, and other topics that will resonate with a large audience. Her voice is wry and relatable, her takes often surprising.
Meet the Woman Behind the Books...
In this collection of new and previously published essays, New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman offers her take on a woman's life across the decades. Her childhood and school years, her newspaper career, her experiences as a novelist--Lippman finds universal touchstones in an unusual life that has as many twists as her award-winning crime fiction.
Essays include:
- Men Explain The Wire to Me
- Game of Crones
- My Life as a Villainess
- My Father's Bar
- The 31st Stocking
These candid essays offer long-time readers insight into the experiences that helped Lippman become one of the most successful crime novelists of her generation.
Lippman is a writing powerhouse.
--USA Today
I love her books.
--Harlan Coben
New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman--winner of the Edgar(R) Award and every other major literary prize given for mystery and crime fiction--embroils Baltimore p.i. Tess Monaghan in the strange case of The Girl in the Green Raincoat. Originally serialized in the New York Times, The Girl in the Green Raincoat is now in book form for the very first time--a masterful thriller in the Alfred Hitchcock mode that places a very pregnant, homebound Tess in the center of a murderous puzzle that could cost her her life and the life of her unborn child.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.
Brand-new stories by: David Simon, Laura Lippman, Tim Cockey, Rob Hiaasen, Robert Ward, Sujata Massey, Jack Bludis, Rafael Alvarez, Marcia Talley, Joseph Wallace, Lisa Respers France, Charlie Stella, Sarah Weinman, Dan Fesperman, Jim Fusilli, and Ben Neihart.
From the introduction by Laura Lippman:
The writers in this collection eschew nostalgia without sacrificing affection. They confront the full irony that is Charm City, a place where you can go from the leafy beauty of the North Side neighborhoods to the gutted ghettos of the West Side in less than twenty minutes, then find your way to the revamped Inner Harbor in another ten. Homegrown Baltimore philosopher Virginia Baker once said: If it ain't right and it ain't decent, stay the hell away from it. Alas, Virginia, Baltimore's not right. It's hardly even polite anymore. But for a Baltimore writer, escape is the one concept where the imagination steadfastly fails. We belong here.
New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan takes on the case of a notorious former vigilante--and finds herself embroiled in a case with far-reaching consequences where the truth is as dangerous as the lies she uncovers. . . .
PI Tess Monaghan doesn't expect her first case in her new private investigation practice in Baltimore's neighborhood of Butchers Hill to come in the form of Luther Beale--an ex-con who was sent to prison for shooting Donnie Moore, a boy who vandalized his car five years earlier. The former vigilante, who became known as the Butcher of Butchers Hill, wants Tess to find Treasure and Destiny Teeter, Salamon Hawkings, and Eldon Kane--the other kids who witnessed his crime--so he can finally make amends. His motives seem genuine to Tess who thinks he's an old man who made a terrible, tragic mistake. Yet others don't see it that way and think Luther is simply evil and should have never been released from prison.
But not long after Tess begins her search, Treasure and Destiny Teeter are found murdered. Could Luther have been responsible for their deaths? Is that the real reason why he wanted Tess to find them? But just when her doubts about her client surface, Luther makes a shocking revelation that puts everything into question. As Tess soon learns, the more she digs, the more complicated this case becomes as she must decide whether her client was capable of killing Treasure and Destiny and if he's telling her the complete truth about Donnie Moore's shooting.
But Tess doesn't have a lot of time for a killer who's waiting to strike again--a killer whose sights are now set on Tess.