The Last Place: A Tess Monaghan Novel
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

If Nancy Drew went on performance-enhancing drugs, she'd resemble Tess Monaghan, Lippman's Baltimore-based private eye. Tess has much more in common with the old-time girl sleuth than with contemporary women private eyes: she has neither the latter's overcompensating toughness nor their dourness. Tess does have a chum, and they delight in pranks like the one that starts off her latest caper, dumping two date-rape tablets into the drink of a would-be assailant of underage girls. Tess' chum even helps Tess' business by asking her to investigate a series of domestic-violence cases for her charitable foundation. The police have cleared the cases, but Tess' friend feels they bear further examination. From this slim plot device stems a road-trip mystery, in which Tess travels across Maryland and discovers the cover-up of a grisly decapitation. A somewhat shaky plot, rescued by Edgar-winning Lippman's wit and intelligence. Connie Fletcher

Favors for friends don't always turn out as expected, Tess Monagham learns in this harrowing encounter with obsession involving her own past. At the urging of best friend Whitney Talbot, Tess agrees to research how police inexperienced with murder cases handle domestic-violence-related investigations. Delving into the specifics of the five deaths she's been assigned, Tess begins to sense that a simple review of the facts won't suffice and that these aren't isolated incidents. Toll-facility cop Carl Dewitt, who found one victim's head on the roadway of a bridge and has become obsessed with that case, convinces her that his detailed knowledge and tenacity can help. The pair cover a lot of ground, from northern Maryland to Virginia, from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore to a remote island where simple beauty can't sustain young people and the aging population keeps its secrets. In the process, Tess confronts some old demons, including a figure who has watched for years as she rows alone in Baltimore Harbor. He knows all about her and is biding his time. Lippman narrows her circle, drawing predator and victim closer. She contrasts the methods of the privileged with the ways ordinary folk must cope and how disastrous the results can be when the monstrous invades their lives. 11-city author tour. (Oct. 1) FYI: Lippman has won Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Shamus awards. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In the seventh entry in Lippman's award-winning mystery series (and the third in hardcover after In a Strange City), someone is stalking feisty Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan. Tess is working for the foundation of moneyed college chum Whitney (who just got Tess involved in an escapade that has her in court-ordered therapy), investigating five seemingly unrelated open murder cases throughout Maryland to see whether there is a domestic homicide angle. Off the job, despite being happy with her younger boyfriend, Crow, Tess is having nightmares about seeing a former lover killed in front of her two years earlier. A Toll Authority cop who is obsessed with one of the murders (after finding the victim's decapitated head) becomes Tess's sidekick, and they follow a trail that eventually ties up all threads of the plot and leaves Tess with new nightmares. Lippman deftly juggles a sense of foreboding with quotidian details as she spins an engrossing tale, and she captures the essence of other Maryland venues as acutely as she does that of Baltimore. Tess is a standout among female protagonists in mysteries, and this is absolutely first-rate. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/02.]-Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

When Whitney Talbot offers Tess Monaghan a job, Tess is inclined to brush her best friend off. Even though the Talbots have more money than God, and even though helping Whitney find and punish the cyber-perv who'd been stalking her teenaged cousin landed the avenging Tess (In a Strange City, 2001, etc.) in anger-management therapy, Tess insists, "You don't owe me." Besides, the consortium sponsoring the project includes not only the Talbot Foundation, Safehouse, Baltimore's Kids, and New Solutions, but the William Tree Foundation, whose director, Luisa O'Neal, once paid a death-row inmate to confess to a murder committed by her son and also, Tess suspects, engineered the hit-and-run that killed Tess's boyfriend Jonathan Ross, a reporter who knew more than was good for him. Still, the actual job-revisiting domestic abuse murders that have been back-burnered by local police-appeals to Tess, so she maps out a road trip through small-town Maryland, only to find the project itself a puzzle. Tiffany Gunts's murder seems to have been thoroughly investigated by the Frederick police; the fire that killed Hazel Legetti was most likely set by accident; and Julie Carter is still alive. By the time she gets to North East, scene of Lucy Fancher's decapitation, she's ready to quit-until obsessed ex-cop Carl Dewitt helps her put the pieces together in a terrifying new way. Tess never stops searching-for answers, for justice, and for self-perception-and Lippman never quits until she's captured each breathtaking moment of her heroine's dizzying trip. Author tour

If Nancy Drew went on performance-enhancing drugs, she'd resemble Tess Monaghan, Lippman's Baltimore-based private eye. Tess has much more in common with the old-time girl sleuth than with contemporary women private eyes: she has neither the latter's overcompensating toughness nor their dourness. Tess does have a chum, and they delight in pranks like the one that starts off her latest caper, dumping two date-rape tablets into the drink of a would-be assailant of underage girls. Tess' chum even helps Tess' business by asking her to investigate a series of domestic-violence cases for her charitable foundation. The police have cleared the cases, but Tess' friend feels they bear further examination. From this slim plot device stems a road-trip mystery, in which Tess travels across Maryland and discovers the cover-up of a grisly decapitation. A somewhat shaky plot, rescued by Edgar-winning Lippman's wit and intelligence. ((Reviewed September 1, 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews

P.I. Tess Monaghan checks out whether several unsolved murders are actually examples of domestic violence and comes face to face with a frightening past. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

In the seventh entry in Lippman's award-winning mystery series (and the third in hardcover after In a Strange City), someone is stalking feisty Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan. Tess is working for the foundation of moneyed college chum Whitney (who just got Tess involved in an escapade that has her in court-ordered therapy), investigating five seemingly unrelated open murder cases throughout Maryland to see whether there is a domestic homicide angle. Off the job, despite being happy with her younger boyfriend, Crow, Tess is having nightmares about seeing a former lover killed in front of her two years earlier. A Toll Authority cop who is obsessed with one of the murders (after finding the victim's decapitated head) becomes Tess's sidekick, and they follow a trail that eventually ties up all threads of the plot and leaves Tess with new nightmares. Lippman deftly juggles a sense of foreboding with quotidian details as she spins an engrossing tale, and she captures the essence of other Maryland venues as acutely as she does that of Baltimore. Tess is a standout among female protagonists in mysteries, and this is absolutely first-rate. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/02.]-Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Favors for friends don't always turn out as expected, Tess Monagham learns in this harrowing encounter with obsession involving her own past. At the urging of best friend Whitney Talbot, Tess agrees to research how police inexperienced with murder cases handle domestic-violence-related investigations. Delving into the specifics of the five deaths she's been assigned, Tess begins to sense that a simple review of the facts won't suffice and that these aren't isolated incidents. Toll-facility cop Carl Dewitt, who found one victim's head on the roadway of a bridge and has become obsessed with that case, convinces her that his detailed knowledge and tenacity can help. The pair cover a lot of ground, from northern Maryland to Virginia, from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore to a remote island where simple beauty can't sustain young people and the aging population keeps its secrets. In the process, Tess confronts some old demons, including a figure who has watched for years as she rows alone in Baltimore Harbor. He knows all about her and is biding his time. Lippman narrows her circle, drawing predator and victim closer. She contrasts the methods of the privileged with the ways ordinary folk must cope and how disastrous the results can be when the monstrous invades their lives. 11-city author tour. (Oct. 1) FYI: Lippman has won Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Shamus awards. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.