The Girl in the Green Raincoat

November 1, 2010
Originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine, Lippman's Tess Monaghan novella turns the intrepid Baltimore PI's at-risk late-pregnancy bed rest into a compellingly edgy riff on Hitchcock's Rear Window. Lovingly tucked up on her winterized sun porch, Tess marshals her forces—doting artist boyfriend Crow, best friend Whitney Talbot, middle-aged assistant gumshoe Mrs. Blossom, and researcher Dorie Starnes—to probe the disappearance of a chic blonde green-raincoated dog walker she'd been watching from her comfy prison. Tess also takes in the missing woman's abandoned green-slickered Italian greyhound from hell, a miniature canine terrorist whose anti-housebreaking vendetta offers comic relief from Tess's threatened pre-eclampsia, her obsessive unraveling of a complex scam, and her last-trimester spats with Crow about their future. Though postpartum Tess turns alternately weepy and shrill, that condition won't last, and this entertaining romp leaves plenty of hints of detective-mother exploits to come.

December 1, 2010

Big changes come in small packages for a Baltimore private eye sidelined by an unplanned pregnancy.

Tess Monaghan (I'd Know You Anywhere, 2010, etc.) never anticipated being pregnant, much less being confined to bed rest by pre-eclampsia. But as she sits on her sun porch wondering whether her maternal instincts will ever kick in, her appetite for sleuthing continues full blast. She sees a young woman and a dog clad in matching fashion-forward green slickers walking in Stony Run. After several days, the woman disappears, and her abandoned Italian greyhound is leaving messes in Tess's living room. Tess traces the dog's owner, Don Epstein, who first says his wife is away on business, but later confesses that Carole just up and left him. Not that Epstein's track record with women is anything to write home about: His first wife Mary was shot in an attempted carjacking, and his second wife Annette died of a hospital-contracted staph infection. In between Mary and Annette, Epstein's girlfriend, Danielle Messinger, broke her neck falling down a flight of stairs—an accident Carole Epstein knows about full well, since Danielle was Carole's sister. With a nod to Hitchcock's Rear Window, Tess uses her confinement as an excuse to exercise her ingenuity in trying to prove that a self-proclaimed abandoned husband is really a cold-blooded killer.

Lippman's slender tale, serialized previously in the New York Times Magazine, brings back her feisty star detective at her most belligerent, most vulnerable and perhaps most appealing.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010
In Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart played a photographer who spies on his neighbors while recuperating from a broken leg. In Lippmans latest entry in her long-running series featuring Tess Monaghan, a hugely pregnant Tess, suffering from preeclampsia, is ordered to spend the last two months of her pregnancy on bed rest. And, shades of Rear Window, it doesnt take long for the curious and incredibly bored investigator to procure a pair of binoculars and start spying on the dog walkers in the park across the street. Shes especially interested in the girl in the green raincoat and her prancing little greyhound. When, later in the week, she spots the dog running through the park alone, she determines to track down the pets missing mistress. And what she finds is a guilty-looking husband with two dead wives and a dead girlfriend in his past. In addition to the central mystery, Lippman provides witty writing and a running theme on the meaning of family, and there are also welcome appearances by Tess independent-minded best friend, Whitney; her long-suffering boyfriend, Crow; and her ace employee, Mrs. Blossom. Another winning entry in the series. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Its always an event when Laura Lippman, who has won every major crime-fiction award going, delivers a new Tess Monaghan story. This novella first appeared in serial format in the New York Times Magazine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2010

Big changes come in small packages for a Baltimore private eye sidelined by an unplanned pregnancy.

Tess Monaghan (I'd Know You Anywhere, 2010, etc.) never anticipated being pregnant, much less being confined to bed rest by pre-eclampsia. But as she sits on her sun porch wondering whether her maternal instincts will ever kick in, her appetite for sleuthing continues full blast. She sees a young woman and a dog clad in matching fashion-forward green slickers walking in Stony Run. After several days, the woman disappears, and her abandoned Italian greyhound is leaving messes in Tess's living room. Tess traces the dog's owner, Don Epstein, who first says his wife is away on business, but later confesses that Carole just up and left him. Not that Epstein's track record with women is anything to write home about: His first wife Mary was shot in an attempted carjacking, and his second wife Annette died of a hospital-contracted staph infection. In between Mary and Annette, Epstein's girlfriend, Danielle Messinger, broke her neck falling down a flight of stairs--an accident Carole Epstein knows about full well, since Danielle was Carole's sister. With a nod to Hitchcock's Rear Window, Tess uses her confinement as an excuse to exercise her ingenuity in trying to prove that a self-proclaimed abandoned husband is really a cold-blooded killer.

Lippman's slender tale, serialized previously in the New York Times Magazine, brings back her feisty star detective at her most belligerent, most vulnerable and perhaps most appealing.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)