The Girl in the Green Raincoat Shows a Softer Side of Tess Monaghan

It's no secret that I'm a Laura Lippman fan. I read her Tess Monaghan series years ago, then somehow abandoned it for a while. Last year, I listened to a Tess book I hadn't yet read (possibly a result of me forgetting about the series for a year or two) and -- wham. Just like that, I was officially obsessed again. One of the key things I love about series novels is the way you get to know both the main character and the city he/ she lives in so well. Case in point: Harry Bosch & L.A.; V.I. Warshawksi & Chicago; Kinsey Milhone & Santa Barbara (oops! I mean the fictional "Santa Teresa"); Izzy Spellman & San Francisco; Sookie Stackhouse & Bon Temps, Lousiana; Valentine Roncalli & NYC; Archie Sheridan & Portland, Oregon; and so many more.

The Tess Monaghan series, beginning with Baltimore Blues in 1997, details not only private investigator Tess, but also her hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. If you thought you learned a lot about the city while watching Charm City Cakes, think again -- Lippman's books are the way to go. I recently read all but one of Lippman's standalone novels, and I'll assure you they are every bit as good as -- while very different from -- the Tess series. Basically, pick up a Lippman novel and you can't go wrong. Tess is a tough character, Baltimore born and bred by a stable, middle-class family. Tess is somewhat of a black sheep in her family, and lives an independent life first as a free-lance writer and newspaper reporter, and eventually as a P.I.

Until, that is, she meets Crow midway into the series. Crow is lovable and as unlike Tess as they come. The unlikely duo, however, has come to a new place of commitment in Lippman's new Tess novel The Girl in the Green Raincoat. The novel, which was first published in the New York Times as a serial, depicts Tess as readers have never seen her before: pregnant. Close to term and banished to bed rest to keep the baby in utero a bit longer, Tess is as bored and uncomfortable as she's ever been. The world outside her window is unavailable to her except through observation, which she incidentally does fairly often. Frequent passers-by become new obsessions for Tess, especially a beautiful woman who walks her dog past Tess's house each day. When the pair don't show up one day, Tess begins worrying about the woman -- and her dog.

She ropes longtime friend Whitney Talbot into helping her investigate the woman's disappearance, an investigation she runs from her sunroom. Whitney takes care of the legwork, and Tess's interviewees come to her rather than the other way around. Crow continuously tries to stop his unborn child from being harmed by Tess's nonstop investigative urges, but she is determined to follow through with the case -- if there even is a case, that is. Overall, this is a lighter-than-normal Tess book (both in size and in topic), but an ultimately satisfying one. It's nice as a reader to see a human side of Tess, a book in which her story is as important -- if not more important -- as the case she's trying to solve.

Lippman once wrote that she felt the Tess series was ending with The Girl in the Green Raincoat. She then goes on to say that she is unsure this is true, but currently has no plans for her most famous character. Let's all hope that isn't true. If it is, we can only hope Lippman will continue writing her fabulous standalone novels so that we can continue to catch glimpses of her Baltimore.

I'd Know You Anywhere Wraps Up My Laura Lippman (Standalone Novel) Reading Streak

I can never remember how to spell Laura Lippman's name. I invariably mess it up on my first typing, then turn to Google for appropriate spelling. Two Ps, not two Ns. I've really been obsessed with Lippman's novels this fall and winter. I have read and reviewed all of her standalone novels, except for Life Sentences, as well as one Tess Monaghan novel I'd missed -- By a Spider's Thread. Given all that reading & blogging, you'd think I could learn how to spell her name. I rely on Google, though, and give my brain a break in the name-spelling department. (The more to focus on her writing, you know.)

I'd Know You Anywhere is Lippman's most recent standalone novel, released this past August. In it, we are told the story of Eliza Benedict, a grown woman with two children whose past has come back to haunt her. More specifically, someone from her past has decided to haunt her. Walter Bowman, the man who kidnapped her more than twenty years ago, is about to face the death penalty for the murder of another girl. He writes to Eliza in the hope that she will do something to help him escape this fate. Eliza has done everything she can to put the past behind her, but this communication throws her back into that time period and memories long repressed begin to resurface.

Not a whodunnit (as we already know that), Lippman's novel is instead a "what-really-happened", for Eliza as much as for the reader. Eliza lives with the fact that she was the only one left alive, the only one Walter didn't kill. Both she and the reader wander down memory lane to discover the details of the decades-old crime and answer questions long abandoned.

I found I'd Know You Anywhere difficult to get into initially. Unlike some of Lippman's other novels, which grab readers by the horns and refuse to let go, I'd Know You Anywhere actually begins with the boring minutiae of everyday family life. Eliza's children are hustled to and from school, practices, etc. with the crime taking a back-burner. But within a few pages, Lippman shows her skill set and draws the reader in, making it impossible to put down. Once again, Lippman explored all sides of human nature, from the most innocent to the most depraved -- sometimes in the same individual. She explores the idea of humanity and the possibility that there is both good and evil in all of us.

I highly recommend all of Lippman's novels, especially this latest one. Coming in January here on A Worn Path is a look at her new Tess novel, The Girl in the Green Raincoat, published in serial form in the New York Times.

Reading Laura Lippman's Standalone Novels

Over the past couple of months I have read each of Laura Lippman's standalone novels (separate from her Tess Monaghan series, which I have been reading for years). I began with What the Dead Know (which I reviewed back in October), then read Every Secret Thing, To the Power of Three, and finally her latest I'd Know You Anywhere. I'll save the newest novel for a post all of its own, but I wanted to combine some of them. Giving short takes on two of Lippman's standalone novels seems to make sense, so here they are:

• Every Secret Thing: Lippman often focuses on unlikely criminals. She does this both as a plot element (it makes plot almost impossible to predict) and as a manner of character development. In characters, Lippman reminds readers that everyone has a good side and a bad side; very seldom are humans fully one or the other. In this novel, Lippman introduces two young girls as criminals, guilty in the crime of a baby's abduction and subsequent death. But how did this crime unfold, and who are the true guilty parties? As both girls are released from prison after their eighteenth birthdays, the baby's mother goes on a warpath to put them back behind bars. Then other girls begin to show up missing. Are the newly released former kidnappers responsible? Or is it all a timing coincidence of the worst sort?
• To the Power of Three: In this novel, Lippman again focuses on teens, but who committed the crime is much less clear. School violence seems to be the theme, as three girls are shot in a school bathroom just after the school day begins. At first, one of the girls seems to be the main suspect. The three were best friends, growing up together in a suburb of Baltimore. It seems to be a cut and dried case; after one became an outcast of the trio, she took a gun to school and shot her former friends and then herself. However, as time goes on and the investigation continues, everyone begins to wonder what exactly happened inside those bathroom walls. 

 Interestingly, although these and the other two above are not part of a series, they are all set in or around Lippman's Baltimore (click on this link for a story NPR did on the city from Lippman's perspective). The books also all include some of the same characters, in both police and other law enforcement. However, in these novels the investigators are always on the periphery of the action, rather than central to it, as Tess is in her series.

What the Dead Know is Sufficiently Creepy for a Fall Read

Tess Monoghan, exceptionally-skilled private eye, stars in Laura Lippman's bestselling mystery series set in Baltimore. In addition to her success with Tess, Lippman has branched out from that series in the past several years to write several well-written standalone novels that rival her own series. I have recently become obsessed with reading everything Lippman has ever written (I read her Tess Monoghan series years ago, so I've already devoured it); I started with this one, and have quickly moved to the others. Currently, I'm reading To the Power of Three, but my first Lippman standalone was What the Dead Know.

In 2007's What the Dead Know, a woman flees the scene of a automobile accident on a highway in Baltimore. After she is picked up walking along the side of the highway, she claims to be one of a pair of long-lost sisters -- the Bethany girls, missing since 1975. Sunny and Heather Bethany went to the local mall one Saturday all those years ago and never returned home. Their disappearance rocked the Baltimore public and literally wrecked their family; their parents divorced in the years after they were gone, and their father committed suicide rather than deal with his own guilt. Now it seems that at long last, the city may find out what happened on that fateful day.

Social worker Kay Sullivan and police officers Kevin Infante and Nancy Porter work around the clock to find out whether or not the hospitalized woman is actually Heather Bethany. Along the way, readers meet the girls' mother, now living in Mexico. Additionally, Lippman takes readers back in time through flashbacks both of the girls themselves and of the initial investigation after their disappearance. In examining the mystery at hand, new things come to light about the 1975 crime that will shock even the most well-read mystery lover.

Lippman has a way of telling a story that is unique; rather than writing simple whodunits, she creates a larger story that gives details unnecessary to the mystery at hand, but that reflects both the good and bad sides of human nature. Her characters are never static, but instead are dynamic individuals with positive and negative characteristics. It is possible for readers to be both appalled by and empathetic to Lippman's characters and their behavior. As in real life, little is ever black and white; Lippman seems to revel in that fact and exploit it in her writing. The gray areas are her specialty, and What the Dead Know is a perfect example of her exceptional story-weaving skills.

By a Spider's Thread Describes a Wounded Tess and the World of Orthodox Judaism

An Orthodox Jewish woman goes missing, her three children in tow. Soon, Tess Monaghan is on the case, hired by the woman's furrier husband. Very conscious about both his business image and his religious beliefs, Mark Ruben refuses to pursue divorce -- the only option which would allow him to fight for custody of his children and spur law enforcement into action. Despite evidence to the contrary, he refuses to believe his wife left him willingly. Rather, he maintains the belief that she has fled under duress. The police see no signs of foul play, and no charges are filed. Enter Tess, whose online network of female private investigators across the country proves handy in the search for the missing Natalie, son Isaac, and the couple's twins.

I've read several of Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan novels. By a Spider's Thread is another winning entry in this Baltimore-area series. Lippman provides readers with details of Tess's life, especially regarding her relationship with the now-absent Crow, but also manages to create an almost-stand-alone novel, as well. Large sections of the prose are dedicated to Isaac, the Rubens' older son. He longs for his father and despises his mother's partner-in-crime, Zeke. Through narration focused on him, the reader is a spectator not only for Tess's investigation, but also for the missing family's actions. As Mark Ruben describes his wife to Tess, the reader has already been introduced to Natalie and is therefore privy to some of her less-than-savory characteristics.

Lippman handles the world of Orthodox Judaism with great skill, describing holidays and practices which might be foreign to some readers. She also delves into the prison system, looking at both the positive influence of outside charitable groups, as well as the dark criminal breeding grounds prisons often become.

The audiobook version of this novel was read by a female narrator with a pleasant voice filled with (appropriate, not over-the-top) emotion. It was a pleasure both to listen to her and to return momentarily to Tess's world.

Lippman is the author of ten Tess Monaghan novels, of which By a Spider's Thread is the eighth. She has also written several stand-alone novels which have earned much acclaim. While a wonderful writer, she is a bit of an odd bird, as you might discover by trying to read her biography on her own website. Her husband David Simon is the creator and executive producer of the award-winning Baltimore-area HBO series The Wire. Many consider it one of the best shows in the history of television. I'm not sure about that, but it definitely makes sense to me that Lippman and the show's creator are husband and wife.