Tess Monaghan

5 primary works • 12 total works

Baltimore Blues

by Laura Lippman

Published 1 February 1997

In trying to prove a friend's innocence PI Tess Monaghan gets more than she bargained for . . .

Until her newspaper, The Baltimore Star, crashed, Tess Monaghan was a first-rate reporter who knew her home town intimately - from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill. Now gainfully unemployed at 29 she's willing to do any freelance job to pay the rent - including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy Darryl 'Rock' Paxton.

In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the lawyer's notoriety, and his trysts with Rock's fiancee, make the case front page news - and make Rock the chief suspect ...

Butchers Hill

by Laura Lippman

Published 1 July 1998

Starting an official business as a private investigator for hire, Tess Monaghan helps a repentant vigilante who wants to make amends to a group of teens who witnessed his shooting of a boy five years earlier, an effort that is complicated when someone begins killing the witnesses.

No Good Deeds

by Laura Lippman

Published 27 June 2006

A Tess Monoghan Novel. The unsolved murder of a young federal prosecutor is nothing more than a theoretical problems one of several cases to be deconstructed in her new gig as a consultant to the local newspaper. But it becomes all to tangible when her boyfriend brings home a young street kid who doesn't even realize he holds an important key to the man's death. Tess agrees to protect the boy's identity no matter what, especially when one of his friends is killed in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. But with federal agents determined to learn the boy's name at any cost, Tess finds out just how far even official authorities will go to get what they want. Soon she's facing felony charges--and her boyfriend, Crow, has gone into hiding with his young protege, to Tess can't deliver the kid to investigators even if she wants to. Time and time again Tess is reminded of her father's old joke, the one about the most terrifying sentence in the English language: "We're from the government--and we're here to help.

Another Thing to Fall

by Laura Lippman

Published 11 March 2008

When private eye Tess Monaghan finds herself literally on a collision course with the makers of a TV series being shot in her native Baltimore, it's not only her introduction to the surreal world of televison drama, but also the beginning of a case that only a crazed scriptwriter could have dreamed up for her. Selene Waites, the glamorous but brittle young star of the show, has been the victim of a twisted stalker, and executive producer Flip Tumulty thinks Tess would be just the person to bodyguard her during filming. At first, Selene seems like a spoiled kook out of central casting and the babysitting job a PR sham, but as Tess gets sucked deeper into the show's labyrinthine web of deceptions and betrayals, she soon finds she's unwittingly become the main feature in a storyline featuring murder, kidnapping and sickening obsession.

The Girl in the Green Raincoat LP

by Laura Lippman

Published 1 January 2011

Bedridden while in the last two months of her pregnancy, Tess Monaghan watches a young woman in a green raincoat walk her dog in the park across the street, until one day she sees the dog running loose, and becomes convinced that harm has befallen the dog's owner.

Charm City

by Laura Lippman

Published 1 October 1997

It's murder in Baltimore these days - and Tess herself might be next on the list . . . From the author of LADY IN THE LAKE and SUNBURN
Winner of Edgar Award and Shamus Award

As a practised reporter until her newspaper went to that great pressroom in the sky, PI Tess Monaghan knows and loves every inch of her native Baltimore. It's a quirky city where baseball reigns, but lately homicide seems to be the second most popular local sport.

Business tycoon 'Wink' Wynkowski is trying to change all that by bringing pro basketball back to town, and everybody's rooting for him - until a devastating, muckraking expose of his lurid past appears on the front page of the BALTIMORE BEACON-LIGHT. It's a surprise even to the newspaper's editors, who thought they'd killed the piece. Instead, the piece killed Wink, who's found in his garage with the car running.

Tess is hired to find the unknown computer hacker who planted the lethal story - but it doesn't take long for her to discover deeper, darker secrets...

In Big Trouble

by Laura Lippman

Published 1 September 1999

For PI Tess Monaghan secrets from the past can be murder . . . From the author of SUNBURN and LADY IN THE LAKE
Winner of the Edgar and Shamus awards

First as a reporter and then as a PI Tess Monaghan has learned how to survive and thrive on the streets of Baltimore. But a new case will force her to confront her own past - and a man she once loved. It starts when she gets a newspaper photograph of an old boyfriend with part of a headline attached: BIG TROUBLE.

The answer to the mystery lies far from Baltimore, deep in a world of good-time music, old-fashioned ambition and rich people's games. And Tess must find out what happened to the man she once loved and the woman who changed him - and the connection to a series of murders . . .

Hush Hush

by Laura Lippman

Published 1 February 2015

On a searing August day, Melisandre Harris Dawes committed the unthinkable: she left her two-month-old daughter locked in a car while she sat nearby on the shores of the Patapsco River. Melisandre was found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity, although there was much skepticism about her mental state. Freed, she left the country, her husband and her two surviving children, determined to start over. But now Melisandre has returned Baltimore to meet with her estranged teenage daughters and wants to film the reunion for a documentary. The problem is, she relinquished custody and her ex, now remarried, isn't sure he approves. Now that's she's a mother herself -- short on time, patience -- Tess Monaghan wants nothing to do with a woman crazy enough to have killed her own child. But her mentor and close friend Tyner Gray, Melisandre's lawyer, has asked Tess and her new partner, retired Baltimore P.D. homicide detective Sandy Sanchez, to assess Melisandre's security needs. As a former reporter and private investigator, Tess tries to understand why other people break the rules and the law. Yet the imperious Melisandre is something far different from anyone she's encountered. A decade ago, a judge ruled that Melisandre was beyond rational thought. But was she? Tess tries to ignore the discomfort she feels around the confident, manipulative Melisandre. But that gets tricky after Melisandre becomes a prime suspect in a murder. Yet as her suspicions deepen, Tess realizes that just as she's been scrutinizing Melisandre, a judgmental stalker has been watching her every move as well.

By a Spider's Thread

by Laura Lippman

Published 29 June 2004

Natalie Rubin, middle-class Jewish wife and mother, has vanished. Worse, she has taken her three children - nine year old Isaac and boy/girl twins of five - with her. Her husband Mark is devastated. He loves her, he thought she was happy. He approaches Tess to trace her. At first Tess is wary. She doesn't like getting involved in domestic disputes, and Mark's love for his wife seems to contain a strong desire to control her. Did he drive her away? Did he perhaps kill her? But as Tess pursues her quest for Natalie, she discovers a woman whose past were better kept hidden, a man whose values will challenge her own, and a family that knows how to button up its secrets ...A SPIDER'S THREAD is part tense thriller, part all-too-human drama about what families do to each other It confirms Laura Lippman as a storyteller of rare intelligence, insight and power.

The Sugar House

by Laura Lippman

Published 22 August 2000

Tess Monaghan's life is back on course. She is where she likes to be - downtown Baltimore, her relationship with her boyfriend Crow is getting serious, she's beginning to make a name for herself as a PI, she's even banking good money. And then her father asks her a favour: to investigate the death in prison of a friend's brother convicted of killing an unidentified girl, otherwise known as 'Jane Doe'. Tess's search for Jane Doe's real identity soon reveals that she is Gwen Schiller, a teenage heiress with a serious eating disorder who has recently escaped from 'the Sugar House', an institution where bulimics and anorexics are subjected to the most brutal regimes. Tess's enquiries as to Gwen's subsequent movements lead her first to a bar, Domenick's, where the proprietor supplies something a lot more murky than food and wine, and then to the State Senate where two of the leading politicians appear to be living a double life. But it is the links between Tess's father, a liquor licensing officer, and Domenick's that worry Tess the most. What favours has her father done the Baltimore underworld in order to stay in business? Why is he scared enough to beg Tess to drop the case?
It is not until her parent's house is set on fire and a body pulled from the wreckage, that she realises that her life may have taken a very wrong turning indeed - one from which there is no going back ...

The Last Place

by Laura Lippman

Published 1 October 2002

Tess's case in this terrific novel is a series of unsolved homicides that may or may not be overlooked cases of domestic violence. After a while, Tess realises she's on the trail of a single, serial killer. But the Maryland State Police are convinced that the killer she's looking for is dead and therefore that he's no threat. But he is. And his target is Tess herself. There are two voices in the novel: Tess Monaghan who is feisty, funny and cool and, as yet, unaware of the serial killer who is stalking her and the chilling voice of the killer himself. In addition, Tess is having to attend anger counselling classes following a brilliant first scene. This is a book that will be rewarding to Laura Lippman's fans but a good starting point for those who have never read her. Her biggest book yet - sure to win her prizes, yet more acclaim and a wider readership.

In a Strange City

by Laura Lippman

Published 4 September 2001

'A plot worthy of Poe himself. Splendid entertainment.' Guardian

'One of the best crime novelists writing today.' TESS GERRITSEN

'An homage to the city of Baltimore.' Booklist

A TESS MONAGHAN MYSTERY

Three red roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac have been left on the grave of Edgar Allan Poe every 19th of January for the past fifty years.

Baltimore P. I. Tess Monaghan takes on the strangest case of her career when a man approaches her asking her to find out who is behind the ritual. On 19th January, as she watches Poe's grave, two cloaked figures appear. There is a gunshot, and one is killed.

Who was the mysterious client who has given her a fake name, and how does an old friend from Tess's past fit into the case? When more cryptic clues are left at her home, Tess realises that someone is watching her every move. Someone bent on killing again.

'Compulsive and beautifully realised.' SHOTS magazine

'Extremely well-written who-done-it. . . A must read for those fellow suspense readers like myself!' 5* reader review

'A satisfying mystery.' 5* reader review

PRAISE FOR THE TESS MONAGHAN SERIES

'Tess is a heroine with a nose for what she is not being told, and she is never content with half the story. These Baltimore novels are effective thrillers, because they are stories about wanting to know what happens next.' Times Literary Supplement

'Whip smart female protagonist, gritty Baltimore setting. Loved Tess!' 5* reader review

'Readers won't be able to resist Tess, who, like one of Baltimore's famous crabs, sports a tough shell that hides a sweet centre.' BOOKLIST

'Digestible, fun, tense' NPR

'In this series, Lippman has developed sturdy tales, wry humour, and snappy dialogue wrapped around an insider's view of Baltimore.' SUN-SENTINEL

'Tess, is a ballsy, free-spirited woman who thinks on her feet and has a commanding physical presence. . . Highly recommend' 5* reader review

'What fun! I discovered a new (to me) mystery series. Tess Monaghan is a terrific main character.' 5* reader review

'I really have fallen in love with Tess Monaghan. These mystery novels well deserve the awards Lippman has won.' 5* reader review